


That Crazy Lady I'm Apparently Related To

by CrazyGorge



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Birthday Sex, Comedy, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Incest, Sibling Incest, pinecest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 11:01:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20469935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyGorge/pseuds/CrazyGorge
Summary: Mabel's the master of surprise parties, but the one person she's never been able to trick is her own brother.After all these years, Dipper decides to act the fool, just to give her a chance....but what if her plan were to cross a line Dipper set long ago?(Chapter 5 Posted. Chapter 6 By the end of the day.)





	1. It's Fine! Everything's Fine!

**Author's Note:**

> Made long-overdue at the suggestion of "CAPITAIN ÜNLIMITED".
> 
> Figured, after the serious one I just got done writing, I'd better get one out that I had more fun with.
> 
> ...I mean, that was what it was supposed to be, but...well, just look. I mean, LOOK at this shit!
> 
> (Disclaimers, Disclaimers, Disclaimers, wtf ever...)

Dipper Pines had long since gotten used to the unusual. Nine years of coming to Gravity Falls at every conceivable opportunity had long since seen to Dipper growing evermore unfazed by what life could throw at him. Yet, there are a few things one can’t really prepare for.  
  


He was pretty sure this was one of them.  
  


Above him, suspended from the rafters of their shared attic bedroom, was his sister Mabel, hanging by a series of what looked like ribbons and pulleys, dressed in a thigh-length sweater with the words “Oo-La-Llama” emblazoned on the front, along with a knitted rendition of what he guessed was supposed to be a...kinky, googly-eyed llama-woman in a red pencildress, face stunned and dopey-looking.  
  


Dipper couldn’t tell from the angle, but it looked like she might not be wearing much else beyond that sweater.  
  


The twenty-one year old adult child hung there, knotted and helpless, contorted into some serial-killer-victim-esque affront to yoga. As he quirked an eyebrow at the exhausted girl, she shot back a guilty grin.  
  


“Uuuh...Surprise?”  
  


Then they heard Soos knock on the door…

* * *

He’d figured out about a week ago that his sister was trying to plan something for their birthday. Mabel may still insist she’s the master of surprise parties, but there’s only so much you can hide from someone you’ve shared living spaces with since the day you were born.  
  


Still, even as she so obviously slinked around, dodged questions, worked away in seclusion at odd hours of the day, walked off aimlessly into town or the woods with a backpack full of who knows what; even through all that, the young man played along.  
  


Truth be told, Mabel had always wanted to throw a surprise party for her brother, but no matter what she seemed to do, it never really worked out. Chalk it up to sharing the day...not to mention, it is Mabel. Silence was always a dead give-away. If she missed a chance to cut loose, something was _ horribly _ wrong.  
  


The second closest she got was the year their parents decided to play along. Though, even that ended prematurely when 7 year old Dipper started getting _ reeaally _ worried about why everyone was avoiding him.  
  


As they got older, it became a kind of a game. Every few years Mabel would remember what was fast becoming an inside joke, and once again attempt to launch a “birthday attack”.   
  


Then, something about this year’s skullduggery in particular caused the younger twin to ask himself “...Wait...have I ever just let Mabel get away with this?”  
  


The thought truly struck him. It absolutely wasn’t the only..._ what would you even call that? _...“joke competition” they’ve had.  
  


...and Dipper by no means wins even a fraction of them.   
  


Yet, somehow this one little thing that no doubt _ really _ mattered to her, was not only shot down by Dipper at every turn, but never even mentioned by Mabel.  
  


The moment he realized this, his mind was made up. No matter how obvious Mabel made things, he would pay it all exactly ZERO mind. He wasn’t sure how much longer they’d have together. The sheer fact that they found programs together at the same college was a miracle.  
  


He’d do whatever it took to let her have this. He promised it to himself.  
  


...within 24 hours, he’d nearly broken that promise.

* * *

He’d just finished catching up with Wendy, who was passing through on the way to a towing job. He was contemplating how the hell Wendy can own the company and still have to go out on calls herself, when he nearly tripped over something as he rounded the corner into the 1st floor stairwell.   
  


Having nearly spilled coffee on himself, he was understandably peeved when he turned to find a...long 2x4, propped against the stairs as a sort of makeshift ramp to the 2nd floor...and not a soul around to answer for it.  
  


“What the...?” curious, Dipper began tentatively climbing the stairs on either side of the plank. He wasn’t scared, per say. Quite frankly he figured this was just as likely to be a new Mystery Shack attraction, courtesy of the “retired” founder, as it was to be something not of this world.  
  


Having said that, the uncertainty made his heart skip a beat in the best possible way. It ain’t an easy way to live, and trying to do so has definitely left its mark, but this town would always be home to him, danger and all.  
  


As he crested the stairs into the 2nd floor foyer, he was greeted by a large, off-green tarp, spread across most of the floor...along with little else.   
  


All the while, the stillness…  
  


His next move was to check his and Mabel’s bedroom. If there was something going on, no matter who or what was behind it, he was going to make damn sure that they weren’t touching the twins’ stuff.  
  


Just as he came upon the bedroom door, however, a clatter caught his attention from downstairs; the back door wheeling open, a huff of effort, and then a faint crackling and scratching.   
  


As he turned back towards the stairs, he could hear it drawing closer. It must have been moving fast because, in the time it’d taken Dipper to cross the attic foyer again, the plank on the stairs creaked...and the _ thing _, whatever it was, ascended to meet him.  
  


The first image he caught sight of rounding the bend of the stairwell was a stunned face wrapped in chestnut curls. Then, he sees a wheelbarrow filled with…  
  


In an instant, Mabel had flung her body over the cart, shielding its contents from view with a wide and _ totally innocent _ grin upon her face…  
  


...and, somehow, she’d been too flustered to be bothered remembering that she was pushing a wheelbarrow uphill…  
  


“Oh!Hiyathere,DipdooOA** _AAAEEIIaAaAaAaAAAH!!!!!!!_ **”, quicker than she’d even come into view, the cart, Mabel and all, squeeled down the 2x4 ramp, ricocheted off the wall, and vanished from view.  
  


“**MABEL!** ” he shouted, _ ‘Shit, nonononono-’  
  
_

Dipper dropped his coffee and vaulted all the stairs at once...He paid for the dramatic move with a sharp, buckling shot of pain through both legs as he caught himself on all fours. Apparently, he’d forgotten how far it was since the last time he tried to make the jump. _ ‘How did Mabel always do it?’  
  
_

Doesn’t matter.   
  


Dipper’s one thought was for his sister as he bursts back up to his feet, rushed for the kitchen and…  
  


...found Mabel lodged butt-first in the kitchen sink, torso half hanging out the window.  
  


“DON’T LOOK AT THE STUFF!” she shouts, and Dipper freezes.   
  


The wheelbarrow hadn’t made it quite as far, apparently getting stopped by a chair and launching his sister. It’s other contents had been scattered around the kitchen floor.  
  


Hunks of...wood?  
  


“Dipper, please!”  
  


Mabel could still be hurt. He had to get to her, but…  
  


But...he’d made a promise. Whatever this was, he couldn’t spoil it for her.   
  


It wasn’t even a decision.  
  


He glued his eyes to the ceiling and stumbled, blindly around the newly-cluttered kitchen floor. At least twice, his toes caught on something that nearly tossed him over himself. Yet, through a kind of fineness only running for your life can teach you, he miraculously kept his footing all the way to the sink.  
  


“Dipper, did-”  
  


“Not even a glimpse. Are you hurt?”   
  


Eyes free from the ceiling, his gaze burned a hole in her, scanning every inch. His mind buzzed with possibilities...and against his will, wandered ever-so-briefly to a morbid old incident involving exposed bone.   
  


Mabel chuckled out, “Hurt? Dipper, are you kidding me? I _ stuck _ this landing!” her brother cocked a skeptical eyebrow, and her laughter slowly died, “But, yeah, actually, ow. Ow, the tap’s wedged into my back.”  
  


Dipper shook his head, and gently began to pry her loose from the sink basin. No sooner had he done so, he found himself...blinded by...something?.  
  


“Uh, Mabel?”  
  


“It’s a sleep mask. I got it at the, uh...thrrrrift ssssssstore…”  
  


Now, that was absolutely a lie, but Dipper again recalled his promise to himself and decided not to press the issue. Instead, he took his sister’s hand and let himself be led out of the kitchen before he could spoil the “nothing” his sister had been working on.  
  


Even blind, though, Dipper knew the shack well enough to tell where they were headed; out of the Kitchen, down the hall, and...to one of the Shack’s many exits, apparently.  
  


Upon reaching the door, she yanked him forward, slipped around behind Dipper, and tried to shove him out of the Shack like a linebacker.   
  


Unfortunately, she clearly underestimated just how banged up she was.  
  


So after a limp, two-second struggle, and a flash of pain and surprise across her face, Dipper proceeded to walk his sister out to his van and take her, bashfully, to the local clinic.  
  


Only mild bruising. She was lucky a hundred times over. But then, she _ is _ Mabel.  
  


_ “Stuck the landing” indeed.’  
  
_

As she later explained, she’d thought she could muscle Dipper out of the house at the last minute so she could clean up the dramatic spill before anyone else got home. Despite this, she didn’t seem too bothered by Soos picking up the mess...once it was the only option, anyway.  
  


Carved logs of wood, roughly the diameter of a small car rim, and about as tall as a paper towel roll.   
  


The younger twin may have underestimated the pull of his curiosity...

* * *

The doctor had advised Mabel to take it easy for the first day. To Dipper’s shock and concern, his sister took that to mean “spend the day in bed on her laptop”. He figured she must be sulking. After all, Stan and Ford had some...admittedly more-than-a-little-hypocritical words for her about her recklessness.  
  


Later that evening, however, as Dipper walked into their bedroom, ready to turn in, he caught Mabel, just for a moment, grinning at the computer screen.  
  


“Oh, um…” she snapped her laptop shut, “...Hey, Diplodorkus,”   
  


Dipper blinked at the nickname, _ ‘That was a new one’.  
  
_

“I’m, um...I’m sorry again about...y’know, putting you through all that.” She trailed off, lowering her eyes.  
  


Dipper smirked, “I just can’t get over how your first instinct was to dive onto the cargo! And you call _ me _ a spaz.”  
  


Mabel buried her face in her hands and croaked out “Bl~l~l~l~l~laaaaaaaaaaaargh” followed by a mock-sob. An agonized second passed before Mabel took a breath and continued, “...Been losing too much sleep...Giving me Dipper-Brain...”  
  


“You sure that wouldn’t be an improvement?”  
  


The pillow had velocity, but her aim was way off, and she was clearly still a bit weak from the hit she took. She wound up missing his face by a mile.   
  


It still rattled him a bit to think that Mabel was even _ capable _ of burning out...As much as he knew better...it just didn’t feel “Mabel”.   
  


But lo and behold, here was the lady herself, too far gone to even think of a comeback.  
  


“We should probably get some, then” Dipper commented, pulling back the covers on his bed. “You’re going to be feeling that tailbone a lot more in the morning.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Mabel for five seconds before she had slipped her laptop under the bed, lying prone on her face. She let out a muffled groan in confirmation.  
  


Then, after a moment, she turned gaze at her brother. “Hey, Dip?” The young man sat on his bed, eyes on hers as she spoke, a tired smile on his face.  
  


“Yeah, Mabes?”  
  


She paused for a moment.  
  


“This is going to sound weird.”  
  


“Mabel, really? You’re worried _ I _ might find something weird? Coming from _ you? _” He protested.   
  


Mabel snickered, then groaned over her sore ribs. After another moment, she lifted her blankets, breaking eye-contact.  
  


“Would you mind just…like, for old times sake.” Her cheeks grew even rosier.  
  


Dipper didn’t hesitate for a second. Before she’d even finished, he’d gotten up, taken his pillow, and begun the stroll across the room to Mabel’s bed.  
  


“You know, that bed’s kinda small for the two of us by now.” He halfheartedly argued.   
  


She grins, sleepily-smug. “You’ll fit.”  
  


Not one more word was said in protest.   
  


Dipper gently slipped under the covers next to his twin. As she rolled over, he held her tightly from behind. The tiny, breathy half-grunts of muted pain slowly gave way to steady, even breaths; safe and comfortable beside him.  
  


It’d been years since they did this last...though likely not as many as one would think. After the summer of 2012, things had been...different.  
  


For a time, it felt awkward to share beds when one of them was having night terrors. Still, even _ he _had to admit; it helped to be able to confirm that the most important person in the world is, in fact, alive well in the moment you come back to reality.  
  


By now, though, that self consciousness was old and dead...at least about something as innocent as this.   
  


They’d been through too much to care. Being together, however they could, was all that mattered.  
  


As he lay there, feeling more peaceful than he had in months, his dozing, hazy mind mused about why they don’t do this more often.

* * *

The rest of the week more or less progressed without incident…  
  


...Well, around the Shack, “without incident” was a relative term.   
  


Mabel was still pulling the ghost routine to the point where it seemed Candy, Grenda, and the Grunkles were the only people who saw her while she was conscious.  
  


Stan was pitching a fit by Wednesday, ranting about The Shack being short staffed with a suspiciously mother-bird-esque tone of worry.   
  


Ford seemed less concerned at first, until Dipper found him working on a wide-field metal detector designed to track Mabel through her braces via cell tower triangulation.   
  


It really tore Dipper up to remind him Mabel didn’t have braces anymore. Between Bill, Ford’s metal skull plate, the...incident with the memory gun, and whatever unspeakable things Stan has had pumping through his veins over the years, the Elder Pines Twins’ memory was always a little off. Dipper mostly tried not to think about it.  
  


Then came the weekend, their birthday no more than three days away, and with it.  
  


“Surprise!”  
  


Dipper had been preparing himself all week to hear that word. What he didn’t expect was to be hearing it _ with _ Mabel, rather than _ from _her.  
  


On reflex, Dipper’s eyes flashed to his sister. There, for just a moment, he saw her wearing a strange look; sort of...shock mixed with disappointment.  
  


But within a split second, a barely-contained glee burned away all else in her eyes.  
  


_ “GU~YS!!! _” Mabel squealed at the volume of a nuclear test as the twins were swarmed on all sides by friendly faces.  
  


Pretty much everyone they knew was there. Grenda had flown back home from Austria two weeks ago, so he expected her, but he could have sworn Nate and Lee were working road crew on the “Dying to Die” reunion tour. Even Pacifica had managed to escape being made the showpiece of her father’s “family brunch”, which apparently was rich-person code for “investor’s function”. In hindsight, he wouldn’t put it past Pacifica to lie for the sake of this, very surprise party.   
  


Then, of course, there was Gideon and his fiancee...yes, fiancee. What was he, eighteen? Seeing the little walking hairdo transformed into a 6’6” tall, double-wide stack of pure muscle with plain brown hair, glasses, and a sweater vest, making goo-goo eyes at someone other than Mabel was...always going to be surreal. Still, Dipper had seen the kid enough times over the years to be sure that he was serious about this “new leaf” thing. Thinking about it, Dipper couldn’t help but hum with a sort of bemused pride. _ ‘Huh. I actually got through to him back then. Holy shit.’  
  
_

The Shack thundered with music well into the night as they reveled in the madness.   
  


“Half a town’s worth of people showing up to your birthday”. The words sounded like some wish-fulfillment bullcrap straight out of a raunchy highschool romcom. Yet, here everyone was.   
  


Everywhere else, they were just the Pines; “those wack-job twins from the third floor”, “that brother and sister we used to go to high school with who were always skulking around, making weird, disturbing art or spying on students, and did you know my ex-best-friend’s cousin saw them holding hands once?”  
  


He shook his head. Everywhere else, they were just oddballs. Here, in this town, they were all family.  
  


As time went on, though, the party shifted gears.   
  


Hard as it is to believe, there was only so long Mabel could keep a crowd dancing and singing along to bad karaoke...mostly because the crowds could never keep up for long. By the small hours of the morning most of the guests had filtered out. Soos, Melody, and the Grunkles had all turned in.  
  


For a time, only Wendy, Pacifica, and Candy remained, idly watched public access, sprawled out with the twins on-and-around the big yellow armchair in the living room. Once Candy passed out, Pacifica agreed to have her chauffeur take them all home.  
  


Then, finally, for the first time in days, Dipper and Mabel were alone again  
  


Dipper wasn’t nearly the teatotaller he’d been when he was younger. Apparently, those Pines family genes, the same that carved Stan and Ford out of wood, kicked in sometime before he’d turned twenty one. They’d certainly done things to his sister that he was...ashamed to admit he liked.   
  


Even so, he worried for a moment if he’d gone a bit too hard tonight. Lord knows Mabel had.  
  


Let it be known, he kept up with her slurred rambling for longer than anyone else in the room...but even then, past a certain point, he’d begun to doubt if even Mabel was keeping track of what she was saying.  
  


She trailed off somewhere amongst waxing hypothetical about a “3.3x Scale, fire breathing, macrame sculpture of Tiger Fist”, and for the briefest of moments, Dipper wondered if she’d dozed off on his shoulder, crammed there into the armchair. As he slowly unwound himself, he began to lean into her…  
  


...only to feel a tiny, damp pinch at his neck.  
  


His voice cracked high as he yelped _ (‘Nope, still not over that yet.’) _, and turned to find Mabel, grinning up at him mischievously with a far-away look.  
  


“Mabes?” he grumbled wearily.   
  


The second he’d said it, his sister’s jaw fell open and she drove her teeth into his shoulder with a loud “Nom!”  
  


He jerked his shoulder away, “What was that for?”, but Mabel simply snickered through her teeth.  
  


“Ba~byfat~!” she chirped.  
  


“What?”  
  


“You’ve still got ba~byfat~...’t’s why you’re the ba~aby brother.” Dipper rolled his eyes, cocking a crooked, buzzed grin.  
  


“Mabel, go home, you’re drunk.” he groaned, ignoring or perhaps forgetting, for a moment, where they were.  
  


“** _You’re_ ** drunk!”  
  


“So what’s that make you?!”  
  


Mabel paused for dramatic effect, letting her jaw drop once more as her eyes went wide.

“. . . T H E A L P H A.”  
  


_ ‘...Absolutely no followable train of thought in this girl…’  
  
_

Dipper said nothing, instead just turning his head to hide the smile that was fighting to consume across his face.   
  


She bit her lip and stifled squeal at the reaction she got, clearly more self-satisfied than she should be. When she tried to follow his face as he turned away, he stood in retreat. Only then did the world tumble around him. He threw his arms forward to steady himself.  
  


_ ‘Wow. How much did I drink?!’  
  
_

Not a moment after he’d gotten his feet under him, something seized his hand from behind and yanked him back to the armchair; and into Mabel’s arms.  
  


Instantly, Dipper was writhing, Mabel’s fingers digging straight into his sides and causing him to flail and scramble away from the torturous tickling.   
  


All the while, Mabel howled in an off-key singsong, “THERE! IS NO ESCAPE! FROM! THE! ALPHA!”” Dipper squirmed and begged, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.  
  


He hadn’t lost yet. With what little willpower remained, Dipper steady his hands and, with years of trained focus, seized both of Mabel’s wrists and pinned her down.  
  


Well, “pinned” may have been a bit too final. Really, he got control of her hands, but in response, the rest of her body became a whirling, thrashing dirvish. The moment it began, Dipper was thrown, bodilly, at least a foot or two into the air, only kept stable by his grip on her arms.  
  


Frantic, he tried to stop her from getting her legs between them and shoving him off. With his own feet, he moved to pin her ankles, but he only managed one, and Mabel’s counter attack wasn’t far off.  
  


In a truly harebrained display, she curled her whole torso, then violently arced it up. With force, she literally body slammed her captor, from beneath, with her ribcage. The young man had the wind knocked from him immediately.   
  


Then she did it again, and again, and again._ “How the hell someone could be strong and flexible enough to attack with their freakin’ torso” _, Dipper figured, would remain a biomechanical anomaly for years to come.  
  


He had to stop this. He’d managed to keep his grip on his sister’s wrists through the onslaught, but even assuming his lungs could handle a hundred more sternum-checks, the way she was moving was doing...other things to him.  
  


Winded, wasted, and out of options, Dipper resorted to _ that _ , his **final solution**.  
  


He struggled down to face height, and in that instant, felt the mood change entirely. Her assault wavered, and her face flushed, dreamy and perhaps a little surprised.  
  


_ ‘...I’m sorry, Mabel...’  
  
_

He brought his face right up to her ear…  
  


...and blew straight into it.

**Mabel eccentricity #33: Mabel straight-up ** ** _cannot _ ** **handle the feeling of anything “moving” inside her ear.   
  
**

She had long become an expert of intercepting wet willies. Yet, all her experience was for nothing. She was drunk, out of practice and off-guard.   
  


Dipper felt like he’d shot the world’s last panda.

**“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHKHHCHHSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP-...”** The move backfired almost instantly. Feeling so suddenly and uncharacteristically violated had thrown Mabel into pure fight-or-flight, and with Herculean strength, she’d thrown Dipper’s legs free of her own, pressed her feet against Dipper’s chest, and shoved him back against the armrest of the chair before Dipper was even able to catch his breath.  
  


The world span on impact, and Dipper felt more than a bit ill, but Mabel was on him the very next instant and...pulling up his shirt?  
  


Now it was Dipper’s turn to blush.  
  


The waist of his pants had slipped ever-so-slightly lower on his hips, and his blood ran cold as he was suddenly all-too-aware of the little hairs that poked out the top of it, leading to…  
  


_‘Wait! Mabel, wait! We can’t! Not here! Not at all! Mabel, you’re...Please, no! What’s gotten into-’  
  
_

Mabel’s lips...found his belly button…  
  


...and a loud raspberry filled the room, paralyzing Dipper in a heaving, breathless laughing fit as every limb shocked stiff.  
  


In that very moment, Dipper was defeated.  
  


A weak, petrified palm tapped feebly against his sister’s shoulder in surrender. She let up immediately, resting her cheek on the damp part of his stomach she’d been accosting.  
  


Finally, a breath. He remembered fights with monsters that were less harrowing than what just happened. Dipper drunkenly mused that he must be “out of practice” in the wrestling department, completely forgetting that he was twenty-one years old, soon to be twenty-two, rather than a play-crazed kid.  
  


Then, mere moments after he had settled, he felt a set of eight fingernails wandering down behind his jeans, then his underwear. Dipper froze. Her fingertips just barely ghosted the crease of his thigh…  
  


...and then...she stopped: Just pulled her fingertips free, gave her head a little shake, and gently patted her brother’s belly.  
  


“No…” she slurred out, “...no...that comes later…” Dipper quirked an eyebrow, but he was fading fast, clearly at whit's end from the day.  
  


For just a moment in the stillness, he wondered if it was a bad idea to leave Mabel there, sleeping contently with her face in his lap. Really, though, he didn’t want to move. Then, just before he dozed off, he heard Mabel give one last murmur, “...y’r...s’prise...Dipper’s…”  
  


With the wisps of his strength, he lethargically took his sister’s cheek into his palm, right where she lay.

* * *

_ ‘What the fuck happened last night?’ _

_ ‘No, seriously, what the fuck happened last night?’ _

Dipper paced in the Shack’s parking lot, behind his beat up old van. Everything was sore, but he was thankful for it. Had they not fallen asleep while conked into what he could only describe as something out of a modern art sculpture, he probably wouldn’t have been sore enough to get up before everyone else.  
  


_ ‘It was nothing! We got drunk, we screwed around a little.” _ he palmed his face anxiously, _ “It was nothing. It was nothing.”  
  
_

It was absolutely not nothing. Sure, maybe someone else could justify that away as two drunken idiots being drunken idiots, but not him, not with Mabel, not after that.  
  


He took a deep breath, holding his pounding head. _ ‘Why the hell was this happening again?’  
  
_

The young man took a breath, running through “The Checklist”; doing everything he could to steady his mind.  
  


Once centered, the first lucid thought that returned to him was; _ ‘More importantly, what am I doing out here by the van at five in the morning?’ _   
  


Alone and a little embarrassed, Dipper meandered his way back to the Shack.  
  


This hadn’t been the first time things had gotten…’un-famillial’ with Mabel...and by no means the most extreme instance.   
  


It was a strange place, the part of his brain where he quarantined those earth-shattering moments with...with Mabel...his sister.  
  


Part of him was definitely disgusted, not to mention terrified of the consequences of someone ever finding out.  
  


...yet, the part of him that actually, _ deliberately _remembers these things rather than rejecting and repressing them; The cordoned off part of his thoughts that he only reaches in deepest daydream, feel not a scrap of shame for it.  
  


When they’d first...done things, Dipper had, understandably, panicked.   
  


It had been a moment of extreme weakness, not long after the summer of 2012.   
  


That time, they hadn’t done much. It had been an extreme situation, and neither really had any ill intentions.  
  


Afterwards, he’d expected his relationship with Mabel to be over; killed in one fell swoop by a bad decision…  
  


Yet...nothing changed, or rather, there was a change, but not the one Dipper expected. If anything, Mabel had grown more comfortable around him, and Dipper found it...kind of infectious.  
  


Now, with the benefit of hindsight, tucked away in that far corner, set aside from the fear of discovery, Dipper had always kind of cherished this side of their relationship; the...moments of complete and total vulnerability...  
  


Dipper grumbled at his own musings as he came through the entrance to the living area. He knew he should probably lie down. It felt like his brain was literally punching itself by the time he got back to the attic.  
  


As he opened the bedroom door, he found himself struck.   
  


It had been at least a year since he’d seen it.  
  


There, in the center of the room, his sister stood, dripping wet, and naked as the day she was born.   
  


Dipper eyes locked on Mabel’s, and for just a moment, neither had the first idea of what to do next.  
  


Finally, Mabel grabbed a dusty superball off the shelf Stan had put in over her bed and, with surgical precision, threw it right between Dipper’s eyes.  
  


Bullseye. Felt like some kind of bubble popped in his sinuses.   
  


His sister busted into laughter. “Learn to knock, you dork!” Then, humming pleasantly, she turned and went back to dressing herself.  
  


...right, so this was the primary side effect of that first…”unfamillial incident”…


	2. NAKED! Naked....naked...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heheh..."SURPRISE"...it's...gonna be 3 chapters, not 2.
> 
> I swear that'll be it, though. I honestly can't imagine how I could POSSIBLY stretch this thing any further.
> 
> Also, gotta apologize right here and now for letting the genre fly off the rails. This was supposed to be a purely fluff-porn, feelgood number, but the longer I went on, the more I felt I just HAD to explain how the twins got into this position in the first place. I hope you find it as heartbreakingly adorable as I did.
> 
> More edits to come when the next chapter drops. Save your copies if you want an unmodified version.
> 
> Sorry again for all the trouble. Take care of yourselves out there. I love you all!

Dipper marched over to his bed, sitting at it and glaring at his sister as she hastily dressed, paying him little to no mind at all.   
  


A familiar flash of pink came into view between the curve of her ass for just a moment before disappearing behind a frilly, purple and white pair of panties with a sort of see-through meshwork around the edges, cartoon cats woven in. The man was surprised that this particular pair had survived so long.  _ ‘Mabel just makes’em tough, I guess.’ _   
  


Then, up came the jean shorts with a shimmy, followed by a loose, indigo blouse with tie-dye sleeves. Every last piece of clothing, and every adorable little shake and readjustment he knew so well, made him want to crush his own head in the bedroom door.  
  


He thought better of it, and instead just coldly seethed at himself with a mostly-bored, vaguely frustrated glare.  
  


Then at some point the pair of jean shorts, that now hid the body of his twin, had started rocking back and forth. He barely paid it any mind until he heard Mabel put on a Dracula voice to hum out.  
  


“Yo~u are getting ve~ery sle~e~e~epy~y~y~.”  
  


His eyes shot up to Mabel’s face. She was biting her lip, eyes huge and sparkling, and one of at least the top 20 biggest, goofiest smiles Dipper had ever seen on her.  
  


Her eyebrows waggled.  
  


_ ‘Shit.’ _ He’d been staring. He’d been staring and she’d noticed immediately.  _ ‘What the hell is wrong with my head?!’’   
  
_

He turned away from his sister, but she just tracked his face with her own the whole way, not once letting that big, smug beam of hers drop from Dipper’s sightline. Even as he traced the whole of the bedroom, she never fell behind.   
  


The tips of his ears were burning as he scooted over to the far side of the bed and looked directly at the wall. There was a frantic scurrying, and alas; there was his sister, stupid grin and all, practically dragging her head against the stone piller beside his bed to maintain eye contact.   
  


In defeat, he dropped his gaze to the bed, but even that was futile. Mabel plunged to his lap, smug as ever and shooting him one hell of a set of bedroom eyes...and, on top of it all, posed “like one of his French Girls”.  
  


“Sup?” she whispered in a breathy, husky tone.  
  


“Mabel, I get it, alright. I’m sorry.” it’d nearly come out as one word. He had to admit, he still wasn’t the best at  _ this  _ kind of joking around.  
  


She frowned with concern...or was it disappointment? It looked like she really hadn’t expected that. Then, that 24 karat grin burst back up her face as she smacked her brother across the shoulder.  
  


“Sorry?!! Dipperrrr~ we-” But when her eyes caught his again, something changed. She broke eye contact; not really to look anywhere, just kind of...zoning out. Her deep gaze darted back and forth in tiny, troubled motions. For a moment, she looked like she was going a bit pale.   
  


Then, she smiled, softer than before, took a deep breath, and turned a sympathetic expression back to her brother.  
  


He’d watched her practice coping strategies for years. After that summer, they both kind of had to. His sister had come a long way...but, no matter how many times he sees the oh-so-rare sight of  **Mabel ** putting a leash on  ** _Mabel_ ** , it always feels like something from a bodysnatcher movie.  
  


“Okay. That was a bit much, wasn’t it?” she admitted, sitting up, cross-legged on the bed.   
  


He shook his head, “No, it’s cool. It’s just…”  
  


“Been a while, yeah…”  
  


Been a while. He’s not sure what counted as “a while” for this kind of stuff. The last time they’d seen each other naked was sophomore year, and then they were both just running late. Neither really acknowledged it...well, Mabel  _ had _ flicked his morning wood on the way out of the bathroom to get dressed. Not a word was said about it, apart from Dipper’s passing “ow”.  
  


It’d happened more in Freshman. Once they were finally alone, even Dipper couldn’t really pass up the chance to freely strip naked and collapse into bed after class.   
  


But then, things got...weird. Weird like he’d just now been.

_ “Been a while.” _

No matter how many times he cobbled together an answer, he’d always find himself asking the same question, occasionally even once a night, before he dozed off.  _ ‘What were they? What even was this?’ _   
  


Seven years since it really started bugging him.  
  


Nine since he asked himself for the very first time.  
  


“Hey, um...soooooo…” Her voice handily derailed his train of thought. He glanced at her, and found her looking off to the side, blushing slightly. “Soooo...sooo...you...don’t really have to, but...if you need to...*MRHRM*,” she cleared her throat and pointed at Dipper’s lap. He followed Mabel’s direction, glancing down to find himself apparently...just...tenting  ** _hell _ ** out of his sloppy,  _ “closest pair at hand” _ cargo shorts.  
  


“...I won’t...I mean, I could go...skedaddle...” She let out little, nervous chuckles all over the place.  
  


_ ‘<strike>Honestly,youreallydon’thaveto.I’dratheryoustay.</strike>’  
  
_

“It’s okay.” He said, awkwardly readjusting his pants to better mask his problem, “I was, uh...just thinking I’d take a nap. Didn’t really sleep well.” She shrugged.  
  


“Ah, well, I think I’m gonna go for a walk anyway.” and with that, Mabel meandered back over to the foot of her own bed and grabbed her sketchbook. With one last turn, a smile, and a “...later, Dip!” that was just the slightest bit off-cheerful, she was gone.  
  


Once she’d left, he stiffly tucked himself back into bed, still fully dressed, brain throbbing, body sore, and an obnoxious, defiantly stiff trespasser between his legs. He started facing Mabel’s bed, but quickly rolled over to face the opposite wall.  
  


The chances of him getting any sleep at this point were actually slim from the start. More than anything, he had to process this...thing that he seemed to share with his own twin sister.  
  


Besides, if he dozes off, he very well might dream again.

* * *

It’s sometime in November. 

Three months prior, they had gotten home from the greatest vacation of their lives. 

For the first two months, things had gone about as well as could be expected. 

Mabel reunited with her friends, gave an impressively detailed “What I Did Over My Summer Vacation” presentation that most of the students didn’t believe and the rest didn’t care about, and she generally slipped back into her life. 

Dipper mostly just faded into the background, as he’d hoped he would. 

The less attention he draws, the less likely he is to get jumped by that jerk, Vince. 

One more year and he’d never have to see the guy again.

The nightmares weren’t bad, at first. 

Compared to the night terrors they had in Gravity Falls, it had felt downright normal.

Then, shortly before Halloween, it...got bad; honestly, worse than it’s ever been since. 

It was as if Dipper had been coiled up like a spring without realizing it. 

And, of course, Mabel hadn’t been far behind him.

The weekend  _ after _ their favorite holiday, their parents had to leave for an evening-and-a-day due to an emergency involving their uncle on their mother’s side. 

Though worried about their worsening Nightmares, Dipper had been dead set on being trusted alone with the house, and eventually won his parents over.

Maybe he just felt weak. 

Maybe he thought, after all he’d been through upstate, it would be...well, pathetic to not be able to handle this. 

It’d been so easy to convince himself he could.

By the second night, he knew he couldn’t.

Dipper stumbles down the hall. He’s not sure what time it is. 2:30? 3:30 am? How long had he been awake in bed?

His pajama’s feel like they’d been thrown in a lake. 

To his death of shame, he isn’t sure if all of the moisture is sweat. 

The fever is burning him alive, even as his whole body wracks with chills, and...his house looks...wrong. 

A larger part of him can swear that he’s still dreaming. 

A smaller part of him...can’t shake the feeling that it’s something worse…

...Like something from Oregon had clung to them, followed them home. 

...Like it was in the house this very instant, warping things. Changing things, snaring himself and his sister. 

Had he been much more aware, he might have been able to convince himself otherwise. 

Had he been even a little more aware, he might have been able to come up with some way of dealing with it…

...but he wasn’t. 

All that he could process was the vague, wisp of a thought that this must be how he dies.

In the wake of the thought, in the fog of his mind, one and only one need takes him.

The door to Mabel’s bedroom, half-ajar, creaks open in front of him, on it’s own...or maybe he opened it with his shoulder. He honestly couldn’t tell. 

Blurry eyes, straining in the dark, pick up the outline of her bed. The sheets are strewn about haphazardly. He expected to see a Mabel-shaped lump beneath her sheets. He found only an empty mattress.

Had he the strength, he might have started panicking. Instead, he merely turns.  _ ‘She’s here. She has to be.’ _

Scuttling shatters the silence. 

Dipper’s feet are blown out from under him. 

He didn’t fall so much as he found himself on the ground, with a dull, muted pain in his shoulder, spinning in his head, and the air knocked from his already weak lungs. 

His senseless mind managed to note, idly, that the little hooves that disappeared around the corner probably belonged to waddles, clearly spooked awake.

The house shudders ever-so-slightly, and a long, eerie roar fills his ears. For a moment, he thinks his suspicions are confirmed; that something wicked had invaded their home. 

Yet he can’t shake the feeling that something about this roar sounds familiar.

Eventually he realizes it’s the rush of the shower.

Confused, he levers himself up on shaky arms, braces against the wall, and slides around the corner into the hallway before he’s even fully on his feet.

Sure enough, the sound gets louder the moment he steps into the hallway. 

Yet, further stumping his mangled thoughts, the bathroom door is open, and the light is out. 

Still not convinced they’re safe, he hobbles at the gap in the doorway, feet nearly snagging on themselves, legs nearly giving out in his rush. 

He remembers meaning to call out to Mabel before he even got there. Yet, his lungs still heave, his mind is still swimming, and by the time he’s able to even attempt it, he’s already through the door.

“Mabel?” the barely-there wheeze that escapes him sounds alien in his ears. 

There’s no response, and no sign of his sister, just the even roar of water, thundering in his mind, now suddenly deafening. 

A head-rush saps at the back of his eyes. 

Balance vanishes, and he braces against the doorway as all thoughts flush from his mind. Now there is only the wordless terror. “ ** _Mabel?!_ ** ” he rasps out, harder this time, staggering forward towards the shower.

He catches the curtain, nearly pulling it from it's a track on the ceiling, before falling into the adjacent wall with his shoulder. Then, the moment he has the stability to do so, he draws the curtain back.

As he strains to look into the dark of the shower, he catches a pair of charcoal-brown eyes looking back at him, wild and glistening and all the worst kinds of devastated. The tiny figure of his sister sits, huddled in at the far side of the shower, visibly trembling under the warm fountain.

For just a moment, the certainty he’d stormed in with strips away, leaving him stunned;  _ just an awful kid who’d looked at his sister in the shower.  _

At the realization, he goes to lurch away…

...but Mabel was quicker.

** _“DHIIP!!!”_ ** water scatters in the girl’s wake as she lunges and sprawls with what little strength she has, snatching her brother’s arm in one hand and his hip in the other, before collapsing again. 

Dipper immediately catches her head and shoulder in each of his own palms. Even now, he has to be sure she won’t slip and hurt herself. Then, ever so gently, muscles weak and shaking, he cradles her back down to the tub as he struggles to a sit.

She visibly heaves in what has to be sobs...but not a sound escapes her.

She wasn’t naked. Through now-adjusted eyes, he can make out the rumpled, sopping fabric of her oversized pajama shirt. A sigh of relief escapes him…

Yet, he even chokes on that.

They’d been practicing for this. They’d been trying to help each other through stuff exactly like what his sister was going through right now. Yet, for all Dipper’s brilliant planning, it never once occurred to them that they could both be stricken simultaneously.

Twins. Always twins.

Suddenly, the pressure in his own head, the heat in his own heaving lungs, came back into focus.

“M-Mabes…” he more breathes the words than anything else, “...hold on...I’ll go get-”

“No.” the squeak, so tiny, nonetheless stops him dead. “Please...don’t go…”

It may just be the fever talking, but something about her words feel like a spell. He can’t leave her now; not when she needs him to stay. Not when she’s  _ begging  _ him to stay…

...she hadn’t let go of him; of his arm, of his hip. Her body slung limp over the edge of the tub. 

They sit there in silence, but for the shower. 

Little by little, she squeezes him tighter into herself, inching her grip little by little, until she’s pulled him into desperate embrace. His muscles relax, and the painful rush of his mind calms, dulls, empties…

...Mabel drew him in, leaning back, and he couldn’t think of a reason he shouldn’t let her. 

Finally, he wraps her up in his own arms, burying his face in the saturated shoulder of her shirt. 

His slackening body slips, awkwardly, inch by inch, over the edge and into the tub. 

Then, he’s on top of her, droplets of water pattering against his t-shirt.

She sighs under the security of his weight. 

He nuzzles into her neck, a lump in his throat. 

His eyes well, and, finally, he just allowed himself to break under the weight of the evening.

As they hold each other, weeping, overwhelmed, unravelling, sweet relief washing through them, time began to  _ melt away… _

_ ...They rolled onto their sides, never once uncoiling from each other’s arms… _

_ ...then, at some point, they’d wormed out of their waterlogged clothes... _

They lay facing each other. Tiny frames fit snugly together, looking into each other’s eyes as they held hands under the comforting warmth of the shower…

_ ...It should have felt wrong, but it didn’t.  _

_ It never even occurred to him that it should.  _

_ In fact, looking back, he hasn’t been able to think of a moment he’d felt so absolutely safe in his young life.  _

_ The way she gazed back at him with a look of such absolute trust...together, they were a rock; anchored by each other, protected and wanted and understood.  _

As the stillness stretches on, even the dull thudding in his head couldn’t stop the weak, dreamy smile from spreading across his face, as he wonders at how perfect it all felt...

...Then, Mabel leans forward...and before Dipper could process what was happening, his twin sister had closed the miniscule distance between them…

...Just like that, he feels the smooth softness of her lips, just touching his. 

There was a slow, tender smack of lips that he doesn’t hear, but feels, and just like that, it was over. 

Mabel’s eyes find his once more, and search them for answers. Dipper, however, is at a loss.

_ ‘Did I imagine that? She wouldn’t really do that, would she?’ _

They linger for another agonizing moment...and then, again, Mabel is moving forward and, again Dipper feels the sweet touch of his sister’s kiss.

This time, it was real. There was no denying it anymore. The moment it was clear to him what had happened...he’s not sure. Things...changed. It was like something miraculous, but all too familiar, was occurring to him, like changing the lense filter on a camera. A wall was gone, and on the other side, was something...wonderful…

Mabel again searches her brother’s eyes, but only for one moment…

...as the next, Dipper meets her with a kiss of his own. 

There’s the slightest wisp of fear in him as he chastely parts from her, the feeling of their lips peeling free sending shivers down his spine. 

Even now, he doubts himself.

...those doubts vanish as Mabel pursues him.

Little, chaste pecks gently give way to supple, secure pressure. There are no more flashes of uncertainty, not even surges of joy. Somehow, it was...like nothing at all. It was just...safe. It felt whole. It felt...like...Mabel.

Her thumb tenderly strokes his, and they lay there, in that perfect moment...

* * *

Dipper bit the inside of his cheek. Even awake, he couldn’t get away from that memory. How could a single moment have changed things so much.   
  


_ ‘It wasn’t sexual!’   
  
_

True, they hadn’t done anything but kiss...kiss on the lips...naked.  
  


_ ‘It meant nothing!’  
  
_

Now that wasn’t true. It had meant everything.   
  


Every day leading up to that, he’d felt more and more isolated from people. He’d always been a loner, sure, but after that Summer? At least before, he and his classmates had similar life experiences.   
  


Two months of crushing pressure had built to that point. Had he not found Mabel, where would that fever have taken him?  
  


_ ‘...F-Fine, whatever, it meant something. It meant a lot, but…’  
  
_

...But?  
  


He finally came to it; the stopgap.  
  


_ ‘We were just stupid kids who weren’t thinking straight.’  
  
_

For years, that explanation had served.   
  


Every time they carried on a conversation naked because they couldn’t be bothered with clothes.   
  


Every time they openly pleasured themselves before bed, mutually agreeing it was ridiculous to hide it when both could tell it was happening.   
  


Every time they tickled and cuddled while showering, when they had the house to themselves…  
  


...Every time one sought the comfort of the other’s lips when they were hurt or scared.  
  


They were just being close. They were young and not thinking straight.   
  


Memories, nightmares, those moments in life that reminded them of everything that happened; they needed each other to cope with that.   
  


It was just a quirk of the way they were growing up, a tiny, tender thing that was only theirs.  
  


Most importantly, it was something they’d grow out of.  
  


Then came freshman year of college...then sophomore...and now undergrad was over. They’d grown up in so many other ways, and yet…  
  


...and yet…  
  


He pressed his face into his pillow and let out a cracking, impotent yell. Still, the image of his naked sister wouldn’t leave his mind.   
  


He twisted about, screwing his eyes shut, but his thoughts still traced her figure.   
  


Even when he managed to drive her body out for his mind for just a moment, that amazing, perfect, glowing, loving smile of hers would linger, dragging everything back to him.  
  


_ His sister…  
  
_

_ His Mabel…  
  
_

He rolled to his back, eyes still clenched, and huffed a sigh.

_ It would end. _

_ It would end. _

_ It would end. _

_ It would end. _

_ ...it would end. _

_ …...it would end… _

Something in his chest stung.  
  


This was it, wasn’t it? He’d put off thinking about it, but there it was.   
  


She had placement, he was transferring to a better, more prestigious bachelor program in a different state.   
  


Even living together, they’d been so busy, so detached. Distancing themselves after things had…  
  


...almost gone too far…  
  


...it happened so quickly, not because they had any desire to be apart, but just...just because life. Even living together, they had so much else to do, so many other places to be. Jobs to work, projects to finish... _ other _ people to...date…  
  


He writhed where he lay. Just thinking of one of those no-name, do-nothing, cushy-living...those...people...touching her like...like they’d…  
  


Dipper suddenly realized he hadn’t been breathing. Once more, he ran through the checklist.  
  


_ ‘In, out...My name is Dipper Pines...In, out...I’m 21 years old...In, out...I’m...I’m in the attic of the Mystery Shack…’ _ it was always just a bit harder here,   
  


_ ‘...In, out...Bill is gone...In, out…...Mabel is…’  
  
_

_ ‘...Mabel is here…’  _ he practically kicked himself when he felt a tear escape his eye,  
  


_ ‘In. Out. My name is Dipper Pines.’  
  
_

His mind wasn’t as steady as it ought to be, but it was enough.  
  


_ ‘In. Out. I’m smart. In. Out. I’m strong. In. Out. I’m my o-...own person. I’m...’ _   
  


...he had to stay focused. He had to stay focused because...this was their last chance.   
  


He grit his teeth and clenched his eyes until they stung almost as bad as his chest.  
  


One last chance.  
  


She’d never gotten the chance.  
  


She’d never gotten the chance to surprise him.  
  


Their birthday, their real birthday was the day after tomorrow. They were going home the following Friday. This was their last chance…  
  


...and he wasn’t going to take it from her.  
  


Exhausted by both the stinging migraine behind his eyes and the raging whirl of anxiety that helped fuel it, he finally felt the merciful slip of his consciousness.   
  


As his eyes parted one last time, more to briefly relieve pressure than anything else, he noted something odd.  
  


Up in the rafters of their attic bedroom...hung a familiar, off-green tarp...that appeared to be bearing some kind of weight.   
  


Dipper was thankful that, for once, his fatigue outpaced his curiosity.


	3. EVERYONE'S GONNA DIE!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh...this is gonna take...EVEN longer than I thought it was going to...specifically one-to-two chapters extra...which is already one chapter beyond what I thought it was gonna be at the start...
> 
> The good news; chapter 4 will ABSOLUTELY come out within the next week. I can promise that with more certainty than anything else I've promised in this whole, disastrous run, for various concrete reason.
> 
> Also good news; I'm super pleased with this chapter. Still desperately needs edits, but I love how it goes, and I feel like you will too.
> 
> Please don't eat me. I taste terrible.

It was a day later, and Dipper was a mess.  
  


_ ‘...Could just be balloons rigged to the ceiling…’ _ the young man pushed prodded at his pancakes absentmindedly as he sat at the booth of the shabby looking diner. Distant as he was, there was only so much of the conversation around him that he could ever hope to ignore.  
  


“-Oh! Oh, and you’ll never guess where Grenda said Marius is taking them for their honeymoon!”  
  


_ ‘...No, that’d be too obvious. Mabel would have a dozen other ideas by the time the first balloon went up...’  
  
_

“Probably somewhere expensive. Jeez, how does that kid get so lucky?”  
  


“Too vague! Ford, where do you think they’re going? Go on, guess!”  
  


_ ‘...maybe she’s got his present up there. Something big, like…’  
  
_

“Whu-? Sorry, I was...focused on…” the grizzled voice trailed off into noncommittal mumbles. There was a huff from the young woman.  
  


_ ‘...no, still too simple. Last night, she’d almost made a move, so if his gift was anything, it’d be…’ _ Dipper’s throat closed, _ ‘...okay, not getting into that right now…’  
  
_

“Since when did you two get so PPPTHT-?!” the young woman blew a raspberry, “C’mon! Our birthday’s tomorrow! Where’s your spirit?!”  
  


_ ‘...oh good god, what if it’s a net up there?!’ _ the young man cringed at the thought of being snared and dragged off to a fate only his sister could imagine.  
  


“Sweetie, we’ve been ‘in the spirit’ all week. Can’t we just have one day to rela-”  
  


“Pptht-!” another raspberry.  
  


“Sweetie, I-”  
  


“Pptht-!”  
  


“Mabel-”  
  


“PPTHT! Pptht! Pptht! Pptht! Pptht! PPPTHTHT-!” She grinned knowingly at her Grunkle.  
  


The old man sighed, “Ford, could you back me up here?”   
  


The elder twins’ brother didn’t even look up from what he was doing. “Mabel’s right, Stan.”  
  


The brother was stunned, “Wha-” but couldn’t get another word out before Ford went on.  
  


“There’s no time to relax. Dipper, I’m going to need you for the afternoon.”  
  


_ ‘Damnit! I gotta stop this. What if I actually guess right? I promised myself…’  
  
_

“Uh...Dipper?”  
  


_ ‘Agh! That just sounds like an excuse! I’ve been ignoring _ ** _all _ ** _ this for too long! I’ve…’  
  
_

He felt something cold on his nose and flinched back. Yet, whatever it was, it didn’t budge from where it hung on the tip.  
  


He darted his eyes around the table briefly to find Ford looking at him with a cocked eyebrow and a slightly bemused look. Mabel and Stan, meanwhile, looked ready to pop with smothered snickers.  
  


Finally, he crossed his eyes towards the object and gingerly found it with his fingertips. Grasping the handle, he plucked the spoon Mabel had, apparently, just got finished hanging from his face. The table’s two adult children finally broke, erupting in laughter.  
  


“Jeez, kid!” Stan barked, “Y’r brain finally crack from all the book-junk you’ve been cramming in there? Haven’t seen you so dull since you ‘got over’ Wendy!” He air-quoted.  
  


Mabel’s laughter cut dramatically, and she clubbed her Grunkle, jokingly muttering something about using ‘The “W” word’ through gritted teeth. Dipper shot right back jovially, “C-ehehah! C’mon, guys! We’ve been through this! I’m over it!” His sister’s barely-restrained snickers returned before he could even finish.  
  


Even Ford was chuckling when his nephew turned to him, “So, uh, what were you saying again, Great Uncle Ford?”  
  


The old professor regained his composure, clearing his throat. “Right. Dipper, do you remember the size-altering crystals you wrote about in my journals?”  
  


“Uh...yeah? What about them?”   
  


Dipper recalled that first summer, when he completed the entry Ford first made. During those awkward days after the new relative first arrived, Dipper had secretly followed Ford out to the peculiar deposit. They’d spent all day and night excavating the anomalous gemstones and moving them to the old bunker for safekeeping...and future study, of course.  
  


Ford sighed, “Well, it appears the chemical reaction that produces them is far more common in this area than initial tests showed. I’ve done some surveys since I got back, and I’ve found at least three other outcroppings.”  
  


“Three?” Dipper asked,  
  


“It’s a lot, I know, but this time I came prepared!” Ford sounded outright proud as he went on, “I’ve rented two trucks and a combination auger-dozer.” He glanced away and...blushed? “Would’ve built the last one myself, but Stanley and I were...busy...with your surprise party earlier…”  
  


Mabel gasped, her eyes widening. She pounced across the table to hug her great uncle, sprawling over plates and cutlery in a way that Dipper hated himself for finding thrilling.  
  


“Ohmygosh! Grunkle Ford!” She cooed, mashing her cheek into the old man’s stubble. Stan sneered smugly.  
  


“As if I was gonna let Pointdexter skip out on our Niece’s big bash!” Ford shot his brother a dull glare that told Dipper it hadn’t quite been as much of Stan’s idea as he’d suggested.  
  


With Mabel still clinging to him, Ford coughed and cleared his throat again, more harshly this time, before continuing. “The point is, Dipper, with this equipment, you, Mabel, Stan, and I should be able to clear these outcroppings before sundown!”  
  


This gave Mabel some pause. She retreated back into her booth seat, next to Dipper, and shifted awkwardly. “Uh...does it have to be today?” the sudden shift in the girl caught the whole table off guard...all except Dipper.  
  


“Got something planned, there, Pumpkin?” Stan asked,  
  


“Yeah, I, uh...I mean, me and Candy were gonna treat Grenda to, uh...celebratory dinner...y’know, in honor of her and Marius deciding on a wedding day?”   
  


Stan looked surprised, but not about her opting out of the chore. He taught her to lie better than this. A moment passed, during which Dipper could hear Ford mutter something to the tune of ‘...Candy and ** _I_ ** ...’ under his breath before continuing.  
  


“Well, I can’t reasonably argue with that!” The scholarly brother barked, jovially, cutting the tension. “We only have three vehicles, anyway. Guess it’s just you, me, and Dipper then, Stanely.”  
  


“Can’t.” Stan punctuated it by jamming a forkful of bacon into is mouth,  
  


“...Can’t?” Ford inquired,  
  


“Sanchez ** _‘and I’_ ** ...” Stan jabbed, “...are moving some things.”   
  


Again, a sudden air of tension fell over the room as Ford glared at Stanley. Had Dipper not known the elder twins’ bone-dry senses of humor, he might have been a bit worried.  
  


“..._ things _ ?” Ford queried, leaning in sternly.  
  


“Yes.” Stan said simply, muffled by a fresh mouthful of foodstuffs. He leaned right up to Ford’s face, staring him right in the eyes “...Very. Legal. Things.” with each word, egg fragments flew from his mouth and into Ford’s face. Neither men so much as blinked in their mutual death glare...but Dipper could tell both were trying desperately not to break. A glance at Mabel showed her previous stiffness had melted away. She bit her lip and snorted, clearly ready to burst, herself.   
  


Finally, Stan snapped back to his food, quickly and calmly muttering “...I’m taking one of the trucks.”  
  


“Wh-, like hell you are! They’re registered under _ my _ name!”  
  


“Was my name for about as long as it was yours.”  
  


“And ** _I’m _ ** the one who’s using it _ now _ ! How is that even an argument?!”  
  


“Your face is an argument.”  
  


The two men bickered back and forth, clearly enjoying themselves way too much. Dipper, however, kept glancing back at his sister. She watched them, shaking her head, but there was something...somber behind her eyes.  
  


“Hey, Mabes,” He started, “you okay?”  
  


She turned in her seat, a little surprised, “What? Of course I am, Bro-Bro! Tonight’s p-arty time!” her voice hitched on the second last word.  
  


Something was wrong. He could feel it, but he knew he shouldn’t press it.  
  


_ ‘Tomorrow,’ _ he assured himself, _ ‘Tomorrow…’ _

* * *

Stan eventually got his way. Stan always got his way.  
  


Now, Dipper and Ford were short two sets of hands and one Q-Haul truck. For anyone else, that would've meant they had one very long afternoon and night ahead of them.   
  


Ford, however, said they simply needed to work “twice as hard”. Classic Great Uncle.  
  


Dipper didn’t mind one way or the other. He needed the time to think…  
  


...well, he really didn’t. Actually, he needed a distraction, a task, something complex; something, anything, but time to think. Sadly, the roar of the auger that flooded his ears as Ford loaded another giant crystal into the truck was only a temporary reprieve in between trips.   
  


After that, there was the mild distraction of the bumpy, hastily-plowed trail Ford had dug through the forest between the dig and the side-street. Then, there was only the quiet of the open road, and time.  
  


They’d have to move away. For the first time in their lives, they were going to be apart.  
  


Compared to this thought, speculating about the tarp and Mabel’s surprise was a welcome alternative. It stabbed at him, gnawed at him.   
  


He kept trying to wave it off by reminding himself that this was natural, this was what was supposed to happen. By the third trip back to the dig, and the millionth repetition of the mantra, it felt like something inside Dipper wanted to burst out and slap him.  
  


“This is what we agreed to. We can’t keep..._ ‘playing around’ _ like kids forever. We _ promised _ we’d ** _grow up_ ** together.”  
  


_ ‘Oh, fuckin’ take that shit and choke on it! You _ ** _know _ ** _ you don’t buy it! You haven’t bought it for years!’  
  
_

“Well, I should buy it, because it’s the truth. We were right when we made that promise. I’m just...just being creepy and gross.”  
  


_ ‘Get! Over! Yourself! Nothing you’ve done with Mabel has felt anything but right and you damn well know it! It only gets weird when you make it weird!’  
  
_

“Dude! It’s, like, objectively weird! There’s nowhere that this is okay!”  
  


_ ‘Don’t pretend you haven’t looked this shit up. Rhode Island doesn’t have any laws against this and you know it.’  
  
_

He nearly swerved into a tree.  
  


_ ‘...okay, fine. Forget about Rhode Island.’  
  
_

“Who cares if it’s legal! It’s wrong! What about our parents?! What about our Great Uncles?! What about Soos and Melody?! Wendy?! Pacifica?! Mabel’s friends?!”  
  


_ ‘For the record, we both know for a _ ** _fact _ ** _ that Candy would be _ ** _into_ ** _ this shit.’  
  
_

“...Okay, one out of ten.”  
  


_ ‘AND Pacifica...’  
  
_

“...two…”  
  


_ ‘Besides, it ain’t like anyone else has to know.’  
  
_

“Oh, sure! Try to hide something about ourselves in the internet age.”  
  


_ ‘Stan’s computer illiterate, Ford’s too busy, and you don’t use Facebook anymore...Not since the incident.’ _ Jesus, how many incidents were they up to?  
  


“And Mabel?”  
  


_ ‘Eh, she’d quit for you.’  
  
_

“**That’s not what I…** ” Dipper found a straight-away and took a moment to rest his head on the steering wheel. The peace didn’t last for long.  
  


_ ‘How long are you going to run away?’  
  
_

Dipper lurched back up just in time to make the next curve.  
  


“From what? Playing fuckin’ doctor with my twin sister? We have to grow up eventu-”  
  


_ ‘Do _ ** _NOT_ ** _ ! I swear to god, you feed me that bullshit one more time!’  
  
_

“But we ** _have _ ** grown up!”  
  


_ ‘Yeah, you’ve grown up! You’re a grown ass man! You know damn well what you want, and you know damn well how far you’d go to have it!’  
  
_

“**It! Doesn’t! MATTER!** What I want!”  
  


_ ‘And what about Mabel, huh?! Does it matter what MABEL wants?!’  
  
_

**“SHUT THE FUCK UP, TYRONE!!!”  
  
**

Dipper slammed on the breaks, screeching to a stop a ways after the plowed path to the dig...and just before a sharp drop into a shallow ravine. At some point, he’d gotten up to a hundred miles an hour. The engine had stalled. His heart jackhammered blood up through his skull. The crusty old leather of the steering wheel creaked and cracked under his sweaty palms.  
  


Said hands found his face and groaned as he contemplated what just happened. Apparently, he needed a lot more sleep.  
  


Hands shaking, he put the truck back into neutral and started the engine. Then he made a clumsy, 5-point turn and gently swung the old rental up onto the rumbling, dirt path.

* * *

Ford could tell something had happened when Dipper got to the dig and nearly fell out of the Q-Haul. The old man dismounted the auger and approached his great-nephew.  
  


“Dipper? Are you alright?”  
  


“Yeah, just...” the young man panted, “...close call. Gimme a minute.” Ford nodded understandingly, but his concern still visibly grew.  
  


“...Hey...Great Uncle Ford…” Dipper felt like he’d swallowed a honey badger, but he forced himself to speak nonetheless, “...have you ever..._ cared _ about someone you weren’t supposed to? Like, ** _really _ ** cared?”  
  


Ford looked surprised, then a little helpless, “Wh-Dipper, I, uh...I’m not sure what you-...” Dipper looked back, searching his Uncle’s eyes. The elder was stunned by whatever the boy had given away in that look, and turned away, defeated.  
  


“Maybe…” he sighed, “...You should probably talk to Stan about this...I’m...I’m not really good with-” Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of green.  
  


A hummingbird, like a bolt out of the blue, shot to a halt directly in front of the elder Pines’ face. He flinched, then cracked into a sudden smile of relief.  
  


“Oh! Would you look at that…” he said, gently…and a little dopily.  
  


Dipper watched as it darted and danced around them, seemingly with not a fear nor a care in the whole world.   
  


It circled his head twice, making him ever so slightly dizzy, then stopped directly in front of his face. To his barely restrained awe and joy, it shifted positions two more times, then...licked at the rosey red of his nose. He didn’t flinch at the sudden tickle, and for a moment he didn’t know why.   
  


Yet, as the bird pivoted its body around where it held its head, backed off, and zipped around twice in little circles, he got his answer.  
  


He smiled.  
  


It reminded him of Mabel.  
  


His heart swelled with an unrestrained adoration he never thought possible. His mind drifted. Suddenly, it was all so clear...or maybe it’d always been clear, and he was finally letting himself just...accept it.  
  


_ ‘See? Now you’re getting it.’  
  
_

He watched it as it played through the air, winding through the trees, sweeping, swooping and diving around the small clearing. Finally, with one last dramatic plunge, it slipped to a graceful stop…  
  


...right in the light beam of the last, large crystal.  
  


Dipper’s stomach hit the dirt.

_ ‘Oh-’  
_ “-shit.”

“Dipper!” Ford barked, but it was too late.   
  


In seconds, the adorable green birdlet had swelled until it's torso alone was the size of a hatchback.   
  


Its enormous wings thundered a gale at the ground like a tornado, with a deafening, bassy roar that violently shook Dipper’s ribcage and squeezed the air from his lungs.   
  


Both Pines had to shield their eyes from the blast, and as the beast rushed skyward, they were blown clean off their feet.  
  


From the ground where he landed, Dipper managed to look up just in time to see the hummingbird spin in place twice before bolting from sight, following the road.  
  


In a panic, he voice cracked out, “It’s heading towards town!”  
  


No words, just action. They rushed towards the Q-Haul, Ford making it to the driver’s side first. Dipper jumped into the passenger seat, and old pickup coughed to life. Ford wheeled around, tires skidding, then took off down the rocky path as fast as the suspension could carry it.

* * *

The trail had slowed them down, but they made up time once they hit the road. 

Thankfully, the cockeyed behemoth had been taking its sweet time, playfully zig-zagging and dive-bombing the road, snapping conifers with each low bank. Either it was completely oblivious to its sudden change in size...or it did realize, and was having an absolute ball with it.

As the great cannonball that was the truck barreled down the road at close to the death-defying speed Dipper had been making it earlier, Ford howled out.

“Dipper! Take the wheel!” The younger Pines filled with dread, but did as he was told. He didn’t like where this was going, but he trusted his uncle.

Hands free, Ford leaned awkwardly out of the window on a bad back and drew some kind of crossbow from his coat. Before Dipper could get a good look at it, he aimed, waited until the thing steadied, let out a cool, focused breath, and fired.

It wasn’t an arrow or bolt, but a kind of metal bolas that launched from the glorified slingshot. Sure as always, Ford never missed. The steel balls and chain found their mark, billowing into the fluff of the bird’s underside. From the way the feathers ruffled in a little spiral, Dipper could tell it’d wrapped perfectly around the things’ retracted ankle.

The fact that Ford could do stuff like that at all, much less while pushing ninety, never ceased to amaze the boy. He figured that wandering the multiverse, fighting for one's life, does things to a man.

“Okay!” Ford barely yelled over the howl of the wind, the engine, and the thunderbird’s wings, “Now, phase two!” He next drew his magnet gun and cocked it.

“Phase two?” Dipper questioned. Ford barely contorted himself back into the pickup.

“Yes. Big as it is, it’s still got hollow bones. The truck does not!” The old man smiled, pointing the magnet gun at the windshield, “Q.E.D…” Dipper, all at once, realized his great-uncle’s head-slappingly obvious miscalculation.

**“GRUNKLE FORD! THE GLASS!”**

Crash!

Ford pulled the trigger and lurched violently forward.

Dipper barely managed to bearhug his uncle’s waist as the windshield spiderwebbed and exploded from its frame.

In an instant, both Pines were now slung, three feet off the hood of the truck, the weak link in a chain between the pull of the magnet gun and the tether of the seatbelt.

There was a great crunch, and Ford yowled in pain. Then, both uncle and nephew slammed down to the hood of the truck.

Dipper had seconds to gather himself. A quick glance at Ford told him he still had his arm. Must have switched off the gun at the last second. 

Good enough for now. More importantly, they were currently on the hood of a vehicle with no driver, careering down an already-winding country road. Everything, every anxiety, screamed at Dipper to ** _think_ **, but instead, intuition prevailed.

_ ‘The _ ** _thing_ ** _ , dumbass!’ _

Dipper lunged for the magnet gun just as the wheels of the pickup began to screech into a spin. He had one chance.

He grabbed the tool, set it to magnet pulse, cocked it…

...then came the flashback. The paralyzing dread. Ford in danger, the alien probe, the crash, Mabel...leaving Mabel..._ hurting _ Mabel…

_ InOutInOut _

_ I _

_ Am _

_ Dipper Pines _

_ I- _

_ I… _

His mind drowning, he lost his rhythm. 

Yet, through the chaos, came one and only one thought.

_ ‘Mabel’ _

_ ‘Mabel’ _

_ ‘Mabel’ _

** _‘Mabel’_ **

** _‘MABEL!’_ **

He pulled the trigger.

There was a drum like the voice of god and the shrill shriek of electricity, then weightlessness.

The truck bucked and drifted into the air.

Dipper looked up just in time to see the leg of the hummingbird yanked out from under it. It thrashed, a panicked blur.

It was working.

_ ‘Mabel! It’s working!’ _

Then, something changed.

The goliath righted itself, and with obvious strain, raged against the weight of the truck’s magnetic pull.

The whole world became a horrible groan of wing beats that threatened to make Dipper sick, and to his dread, the bird began to rise again...and the truck after it.

There was a kick as the back-end of the truck’s bed struck a treetop. The force threw Ford, pulled back into his seat by the tangle of his safety belt.

Dipper clung to the magnet gun with everything he had, wind rushing through his flannels, legs desperately scrambling for grip or brace of any kind as his body caught lift from the rushing winds.

God, was he glad Mabel talked him into taking up rock-climbing with her.

The pickup began to rock and sway.

Dipper’s eyes strained in the blistering gale.

He managed to see that the hummingbird, eyes wild in panic, had begun to swing wildly from left to right, desperately trying to shake its baffling magnetic anchor as it rapidly lost altitude.

What’s more, through windburned eyeballs, Dipper managed to see it’d diverted its course. It wasn’t headed towards town anymore.

Now it was headed for the Mystery Shack.

The tacky sign, letter still missing, was gaining fast.

At the rate they were plunging...they wouldn’t clear it.

Again, Dipper’s thoughts turned to the one thing that mattered.

He made the only move he could make.

He reached to the butt of the magnet gun…

...and shut it off...

...Treelimbs...

Treelimbs and noise.

Then rancid, heaving force.

A spine-rattling kick as the back-end struck a tree, and the truck was spinning.

Then another kick, and it was spinning the other way.

A thunderclap, and it was rolling, then a snap.

Silence.  
  


Weightlessness.  
  


Pain.

A blur.

Then nothing.

* * *

...Trees...

...Was he dead?

He couldn’t feel anything.

He’d tried so hard to save Ford.

He had to.

Ford believed in him.

Ford...wanted him to stay with him…here, in Gravity Falls...

...But...what about…

“MABEL!”  
  


He was up on his hands and knees...and immediately regretted it.

The probe must have thrown him harder than he thought it had.

...the probe…

He began shivering, and took to working himself through his routine…

_ In. Out. In. Out. _

_ My name is Dipper Pines. _

_ In. Out. In. Out. _

_ I’m twelve? Thirteen years...old… _

Wait...that wasn’t right…his body was...too big...

_ I’m...sixteen? _

_ ...no...twenty one… _

Panic.  
  


He shot to his feet, legs giving out for only a second before he righted himself.  
  


_ ‘The hummingbird. The truck. They’d been so close to-...’  
  
_

He was walking, then running, tearing through the underbrush, even as his muscles screamed.  
  


The Shack came into view, and his blood turned to dry ice.  
  


There, through the sign and into the attic, was a hole the size of a hatchback...  
  


...To him, there was no parking lot.  
  


There was no side door.  
  


No gift shop.  
  


No hallway.  
  


No stairs.  
  


No attic foyer.  
  


No time for any of it. Just a frantic blur.  
  


Had to get there.  
  


Had to make sure.  
  


Had to make sure.  
  


There was only the door to their bedroom.  
  


The door flew open…

* * *

Dipper Pines had long since gotten used to the unusual.   
  


Nine years of coming to Gravity Falls at every conceivable opportunity had long since seen to Dipper growing evermore unfazed by what life could throw at him. Hell, as recently as he could remember, he had been levitating, possibly up to a mile above the ground, clinging to the hood of a magnetized Q-Haul pickup truck, tugged through the air behind an eighteen-foot-long hummingbird.   
  


Yet, there are a few things one can’t really prepare for.  
  


Dazed, likely thoroughly concussed, he felt pretty sure this was one of them.  
  


Above him, suspended from the rafters of their shared attic bedroom, was his sister Mabel, hanging by a series of what looked like ribbons and pulleys, dressed in a thigh-length, aqua-green sweater with the words “Oo-La-Llama” emblazoned on the front, along with a knitted rendition of what he guessed was supposed to be a...kinky, googly-eyed llama-woman in a red pencildress, face stunned and dopey-looking.  
  


Dipper couldn’t tell from the angle, but it looked like she might not be wearing much else beyond that sweater.  
  


The twenty one year old adult child hung there, knotted and helpless, contorted into some serial-killer-victim-esque affront to yoga. As he quirked an eyebrow at the exhausted girl, she shot back a guilty grin.  
  


“Uuuh...Surprise?”  
  


Then they heard Soos knock on the door…  
  


Mabel suddenly slipped, her body swinging into another contortionist’s fever dream...but this time, it was abundantly clear how...err…”undressed” she was. Dipper’s face went radish-colored.  
  


“Doodz!” Soos shouted, “I saw what happened! You guys alright?!”  
  


The door began to creak open, and disoriented as he was, Dipper could only think to rush for the door and slam it shut.  
  


“Whoah! Doodz?”  
  


“We’re fine, Soos! Ma-BEL’s fine!” Dipper’s voice cracked loudly.  
  


“You sure? There’s a hole in the side of the Shack...oh, and there’s this pickup end-o’ed on it’s nose in the parkin’ lot.” Soos chuckled, “Looks pretty rad, doodz. You gotta see this!”  
  


_ ‘SHIT! FORD!’  
  
_

“SOOS! GREAT UNCLE FORD’S IN THERE!”  
  


“HOLY TAMALE!!” and with that, there was the rumble of footsteps down the stairs, and the twins were alone.  
  


Dipper rushed over to Mabel. “Can you untangle yourself?”  
  


“Y-yeah, I just...hold on, I-” Mabel grunted, then all of a sudden, she was in freefall.  
  


Dipper held his arms out...but she didn’t land in his arms…  
  


...she landed, crotch-first, square on his face…  
  


...it might have been pleasant...if it weren’t for her whole weight being behind it.  
  


Dipper’s already-spinning head slammed into the ground, and his ears began to ring.

He couldn’t quite hear…

...but he thinks Mabel shouted something like “Ohmygod! Dip!”

She was an angel.

A beautiful, glowing angel.

He could kiss her all over…

...but...like...not in a weird way…

...he was sleepy…

_ ‘Dude, Seriously! Don’t go to sleep! That is a very bad idea! Even I know that’s a bad idea!’  
_

“Shut up, Tyrone…” he muttered

“Dip? Dipper, what did you-” she was on the phone now…well...kind of off the phone...holding her hand over the mouthpiece...she was so beautiful when she was...on the...phone…

He could kiss her all over…

...in a really...really weird way…

_ ‘DuuuUUDE! Don’t do i-’ _

He was sleepy...

* * *

“Mild TBI” they called it. Apparently, football players get it all the time.  
  


So, he didn’t have a concussion…at least, not a proper one...  
  


The lack of sleep hadn’t helped. Apparently, he really just genuinely needed more rest.  
  


Still, the doctor recommended the standard “wake up once every hour” routine. They didn’t seem too insistent about maintaining it...but Mabel sure was. The way she was running around, you’d think the world was ending...hell, once the world actually _ was _ ending and she wasn’t this panicked.  
  


What happened to Ford probably didn’t help. That move with the magnet gun had snapped his radius bone, dislocated his shoulder, and severely strained pretty much every tendon from his fingers to his tailbone on one side. They said he “would have been a wad of jello if [he] weren’t so fit”. Thankfully, the truck had taken most of the impact from the crash.   
  


Apparently, those Q-Hauls are built like tanks.  
  


Ford still didn’t take his mistake too well. Apparently, he’s filing for alzheimer's tests...though the fact that he pretty much broke-the-scales on the early cognitive exams have given the doctors their doubts.  
  


Mabel speculated he was just beating himself up, then remarked that it reminded her of “someone else she knew”.  
  


The snapped passenger seatbelt revealed that Dipper had been thrown from the wreck shortly after contact with the treeline…  
  


...and subsequent sweeps of the area revealed a large collection of particularly thin conifer branches that had been snapped or bent. It was as if the trees of Gravity Falls themselves had caught the young man and rolled him to safety. Beyond the head impact and some minor lacerations, he was more or less unscathed.  
  


Oddly, the one who’d been most injured was Stan.  
  


In his rush to the hospital, he’d swerved to miss Tyler Cutebiker’s Hot-Pink “Mayoral Chopper” Motorcycle, veered into oncoming traffic...and T-Boned “Pizza Guy’s” delivery truck, scattering greek cheese-pastry to the four-corners of the town.  
  


Stan had broken his left arm in four places, and his leg in two. Meanwhile, Pizza Guy was being treated for a broken heart. Both of Stan’s casts matched Ford’s right-side injuries quite nicely.  
  


Twins.  
  


Four month recovery, they projected. Record time, considering their ages. Apparently, Pines are built like Q-Hauls. Stan seemed more annoyed at the medical bills than anything else...not to mention the insurance from two wrecked trucks.  
  


That, finally, left Dipper and Mabel alone in his hospital room. He was due for release in the morning.  
  


Mabel twiddled her thumbs, anxiously, on the chair next to Dipper’s hospital bed. He sat with the backrest up, draped in a wholly unnecessary hospital gown.   
  


She hadn’t even thought to change clothes, so she was still wearing that skimpy sweater-dress, “Oo-La-Llama” and all. Unlike before, her legs were now covered in a spare pair of blue scrub-pants.  
  


Her excuse was roughly that she had just gotten out of the shower, and was using it as something like a bathrobe. They’d offered her pants shortly after her arrival, and in her worry, she’d very nearly turned them down...before a mother complained about public indecency and they’d threatened to call security.  
  


Dipper stared at her sister. Her face...the way it twisted in worry...she...she looked like...him...her mind was clearly racing, looking for ways she was to blame. He hadn’t seen her this way since after Weirdmaggedon.  
  


He shuddered at the thought. Then, finally, he spoke, “Mabes, what was…”  
  


“I’M SORRY!”  
  


“Mabel?”  
  


“I’m so sorry! It was stupid! You should have been out helping Ford! You should have been...you could have been...Stan and...oh god, I…” She hyperventilated. He curled closer to her from his propped-up backrest.  
  


“Mabel! You didn’t do anything!”  
  


“I did ** _EVERYTHING!_ ** ” Dipper recoiled at her words, “I...I wanted...I pushed myself on you so much, I...I…” she blubbered, completely unable to compose herself. “I’m...I’m so ** _gross!_ ** You just...why do I...I…you just…” she sobbed, unravelling in seconds. Dipper tried to reach out, but she pulled away.  
  


“You have so much-...You can _ be _ so much, you’re not...you’ve never been...you...you…”  
  


Dipper couldn’t speak.  
  


His words coming out of her mouth, and it just felt so...so...wrong…  
  


Was this why she’d been acting so different?  
  


Was this why she’d been trying so hard not to be...her?  
  


What had she been going through while he was…  
  


...while he was…  
  


...like a...  
  


_ ‘What are you waiting for, dork-ass?’  
  
_

The chair clattered to the ground as Mabel tore from her seat, wild and heaving breath. Her words were a hailstorm, barely audible.  
  


“iShouldn’tBe-!iShouldn’tBe-!iShouldn’tBe-!iShouldn’t-” She made a rush for the door-...  
  


...but, as she turned...Dipper caught his sister’s wrist in his hand…  
  


...she froze…  
  


...tugged a bit...but he wouldn’t let go…  
  


“Dipper!” she finally broke out, bawling, “I’m so sor-” and then…  
  


...just like that…  
  


...he’d stood...  
  


...pulled her wrist…  
  


...drew her around into his arms…  
  


...pinned her trembling figure, securely, against his, and…  
  


...and...  
  


...and just like that, she felt the smooth softness of his lips, just touching hers.   
  


There was a slow, tender smack of lips that she didn’t hear, but felt, and just like that, it was over.   
  


Mabel’s eyes found his once more, and searched them for answers.  
  


And she found them.  
  


In Dipper’s eyes was a certainty, a strength; like the roots of a redwood, firm and strong and lasting.  
  


_ ‘Did I imagine that? He wouldn’t really do that, would he?’ _ He read the thoughts through her eyes.  
  


They lingered for another agonizing moment...and then, again, Dipper was moving forward and, again Mabel felt the sweet touch of her brother’s kiss.  
  


This time, it was real. There was no denying it anymore. The moment it was clear to her what had happened, she was sure; Things...changed. It was like something miraculous, but all too familiar had occurred to her, like changing the lense filter on a camera. A wall was gone, and on the other side, was something...wonderful…  
  


Mabel again searched her brother’s eyes, but only for one moment…  
  


...as the next, she had met her brother’s a kiss of her own. With firmness, his passion poured into her as her lips parted, not from his but from her own, and his tongue slipped, gently, tentatively, in to graze hers; testing, with such care.  
  


Even now, she doubted herself. _ ‘What was this? Was he just doing this for her? They shouldn’t…’  
  
_

... but those doubts vanished as Dipper enveloped her.  
  


Little, grazes gave way into a heated, mutual dance. There were no more flashes of uncertainty, only surges of joy. They were out in the open. Anyone could walk in. It was everything Dipper had always feared, and yet...Mabel had never felt so...safe.  
  


Her thumb tenderly stroked his, and they stood there, in that perfect moment…  
  


...but, this wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a long-gone memory. This was real. This was now...and so, to her crushing heartbreak, it had to end.  
  


Then, he spoke, and she was almost too dazed by it all to hear him.  
  


“So...you were planning a surprise?”  
  


Her breath left her.  
  


“How did you-” she stopped herself, “Right-” Dipper smiled.  
  


“Yeah.” he replied. Then _ she _ smiled.  
  


Twins.  
  


“Guess I kinda suck at surprise parties, huh…” she lowered her gaze, but he could feel her smile. He knew she didn’t mean it. She just wanted to hear what he would say next.  
  


“Nah…” he shrugged, “I just know you too well.”  
  


She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled into his chest. In turn, his arm snaked around her back, his hand resting on her opposite shoulder from behind. The other found the back of her head. She planted lips against his chest, gently, through his hospital gown, tears pooling in her eyes as he planted comforting kisses of his own on the top of her head.  
  


She began to tremble. To his own surprise, he did, too.  
  


Her gaze turned up to face him, her scrunched form making her so much shorter. He knew what she was going to say. He knew, and he couldn’t let her…  
  


...not before he did.  
  


“I love you, Mabel.” her lips had just parted, her first word dying in her throat as a gasp. Her eyes widened.   
  


“I’m ** _in_ ** love with you…” he breathed in slightly, choking back the tiniest of sobs, “...and, quite frankly...I don’t think I’m ever gonna leave you, so…” Mabel was at the brink of blubbering, and despite his attempts to act cool, Dipper wasn’t that far behind her, “...y’better get used to...”  
  


She lunged up, finally matching his height again, taking the back of his head in one hand, his shoulder in another.  
  


Her lips drove into his, and years, almost a decade of barely-restrained passion crashed into him, hard enough to leave bruises. Dipper pulled a sharp, surprised breath through his nose, before groaning back into the kiss as fire took them.  
  


Fingers of his one hand wove into her hair, mirroring hers within his, and his free arm took her by the small of her back, bending her back with the force of his need, causing her knees to go week. Their tongues found each other almost simultaneously, and swirled about where they kissed, breaking only momentarily for sharp, desperate gasps.  
  


Mabel moaned, husky with passion. Her low hand raced up to Dipper’s cheek to cup it, and she fought for control of her twin.   
  


Yet, with another low groan, Dipper’s palm found the cheek of her ass, and ground her hard into the rapidly growing bulge of his hospital gown. As they met below, her nerves burst with light and her whole body went squishy; “The Alpha Twin”, powerless before her brother.  
  


She tore away. Dipper didn’t even have time to look disappointed before she shot him _ that look _ . It terrified him; deep and ravenous and overwhelming, but he was done hesitating. He was…  
  


A ‘ping’ rang out over the PA, stopping both of the lovers in their tracks, eyes shooting to the speaker in the roof. All of a sudden, the muffled background hum of the hospital returned, and they realized where they were; how exposed they were.  
  


They met each other’s eyes once more, more than a little stunned.  
  


Then, giggles. Small at first, but growing, first from Mabel, then surpassed by Dipper, until they were literally falling over each other, chins propped on the other’s shoulders, steadying their other half as they heaved with a giddy, uncontainable mirth.  
  


It felt like an eternity passed like that, wave upon wave of relief rolling off their shoulders.  
  


Though, in time, they expended themselves. With only a few, weak chuckles left between them, they held each other, swaying gently, as if dancing to a tune only they could hear.   
  


In the stillness of the moment, Mabel’s lips ghosted up Dipper’s neck, along his jawline, and to his ear, where she finally whispered those magic words.  
  


“I love you, Bro-Bro…”  
  


As she did, she’d rolled her hips, almost imperceptibly, against his still-swollen tentpole. For a moment, he reflexively pushed back, and felt the heat and wetness between her legs. It felt as if things were about to escalate again.  
  


Yet, though he hated to admit it, Dipper knew this was neither the time nor place.  
  


He did the only thing he could think of.  
  


He turned in towards his sister’s ear…  
  


...and blew air into it.  
  


For the second time, he’d done the unforgivable.  
  


Shock, shrieks, spasms, before a meaty shove away and a sock to Dipper’s shoulder.  
  


“DIPPER! How could you?!” Mabel howled in indignation. Her brother could only laugh.  
  


“I’m sorry! We just ca-…”  
  


“No!” the defiant words from her gave him pause. Then, suddenly, there was tenderness as she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder once more, “Please, don’t...don’t say we can’t again...I know this isn’t…” her breath hitched, “...just, please…”  
  


He smiled sympathetically, holding her and gently stroking her hair.   
  


They stayed like this for some time before Dipper spoke. “...So...a birthday surprise, huh?”   
  


She nodded into his shoulder.  
  


“I’m, uh…” he squeezed her a bit, “I’m sorry I ruined it.”  
  


She took a deep breath, “It’s okay…” she mumbled, “...I was...taking it down, anyway.”   
  


This took him aback. “W-what?” Dipper stammered, “Why?”  
  


She groaned, pulling back to look him in the eye, “C’mon, Dip. You know why.”  
  


Suddenly, he felt more than a little sick. It _ was _ that kind of surprise.  
  


“Oh...oh god, Mabel, I’m so…” she silenced him with a finger to his lips.  
  


“No, it’s...it’s fine...I just...I don’t know. It’d been so long...I thought…that maybe I could...remind you of how…” her eyes flicked away down to their embrace, gesturing without wanting to let go, “Y’know...how ** _this_ ** felt…” she sighed.  
  


Dipper smiled at her, “Sorry for being so thick in the head?”  
  


She stuck her tongue out at him, before grumbling, “Yeah, well, you should be.”  
  


He chuckled a little, and even Mabel couldn’t help but snort a laugh in that way that just made Dipper melt. A few moments of silence passed between them resting their heads on each other’s shoulders, before Dipper started once more.  
  


“Well...I get let out tomorrow...it’s our birthday…” Mabel pulled back, looking at Dipper in the eye with the faintest ghost of hope, “...and we’ll probably have the whole Shack to ourselves…” before he could even finish, a big, beaming smile crept across her face.   
  


“...Think you could cook up a new surprise by then?”  
  


Even though they were technically still in public, Mabel couldn’t help but sneak a kiss to her brother...and he could help but return one.  
  


But then, panic, and Mabel shot away from her brother.  
  


“Oh shoot! Dipper!”  
  


His eyes tore to the door, thinking immediately that they’d been caught, but it was still closed. He whipped back to her, “What? What is it?”  
  


“The hummingbird! It’s still out there!”  
  


Dipper breathed the tiniest sigh of relief, “Don’t worry, Mabel, we led it away from town.” His sister smacked her forehead in disbelief.  
  


“No, dorkus! Doi! Do you have any idea how much sugar-water those things drink?! And they’re normally TINY! That poor thing’s probably STARVING out there!”   
  


He had to admit, he did feel the tiniest pang of guilt at the idea, but he responded, “Oh...I mean yeah, you’re probably right but...what can we do?”  
  


Mabel tucked a lock of hair into her mouth and chewed it, her face tight with focus, before she shot a look at her brother, eyebrow quirking, a smirk across her face. Something fluttered inside Dipper. _ ‘Oh jeez, I can’t handle when she gets…’  
  
_

“...That look...” he muttered, “What’s with the look?”  
  


The smirk broke into a grin, hair still in her teeth...which she took a moment to spit out with a ‘Pweh! Pweh!’  
  


“We, my dear Dipperoni,” she whispered, giddily, “are gonna bust you outta here!”


	4. Is this even LEGAL?!?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally made good on my promise to have a new chapter done within a week. Should be proud, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Right now, I'm just tired.
> 
> NSFW Content Incoming
> 
> Though, I probably should haven given that warning for all the tentpole-ing in the last chapter.
> 
> Officially in the home stretch; for real this time! Thanks to everyone who stuck with this mess for so long~

Mabel peered out into the hall. The coast was clear, but they’d need to get past the front desk of the floor if they intended to slip out.  
  


Dipper stuck his head out above his sister’s, tightening the strings on his hospital gown for decency.  
  


“So, how, exactly, are we gonna do this?” Dipper mostly asked rhetorically. He was already more than on-board and thinking of a plan, himself.   
  


Before any brilliant ideas could leap to mind, Mabel had burst out into the hallway and across to the next room. There was the ‘ping’ of a nurse call button. Then, like a flash, she darted across to the next room. Then the next. There were a couple barks of protest from cranky patients, but not one slowed her down as she flew from hospital bed to hospital bed.   
  


By the time a flock of three nurses had come to check on the ruckus, she’d rushed around the corner, opposite to the front desk, and onto the next stretch of rooms.  
  


For a moment, there was nothing but the commotion of orderlies with patients. Then came multiple pings from the opposite side of the floor...combined with frantic wails for help.  
  


The young man couldn’t help but feel just the slightest twinge of dread.   
  


Then, as there was the rumble of rushing hospital workers, Mabel suddenly appeared around the corner she’d first vanished around, and snagged her brother by the hand.  
  


_ “What did you _ ** _do_ ** _ ?!” _ he whispered sharply, noticing that the front desk was unmanned.  
  


_ “Oh, hush you, Broseph!” _ she chirped under her breath as they banked around the hallway towards the main stairwell, _ “I just owe someone a favor. We’re gonna need to smuggle in a lo~ot of pizza, later.” _

Dipper couldn’t help but smile.

They came up on the stairs, only for Mabel to suddenly stop at an abandoned orderly cart off to the side. She browsed it with a finger on her chin.  
  


“Mabel? What are you doing?”  
  


“Grabbing supplies!” she retorted. The girl snatched something from the kart, stuffing it down the neck of her sweater. Then, she snagged her brother’s hand and rushed down the stairs.  
  


They only traveled a single floor before she stopped again in the stairwell.  
  


“Wait here!” She ordered, and rushed into the 2nd floor ward. He didn’t have time to protest, so he did as instructed.  
  


This gave him some time to think. Firstly, about why they’d stopped.  
  


He knew the Grunkles were being kept on this floor, as it was closer to triage. What that meant, he couldn’t say for certain. Stan would probably be willing to help, but both were still bed-ridden. No, that couldn’t be it.  
  


_ ‘Come to think of it, why the hell did one of the smallest towns in Oregon have a three-floor hospital?’ _ Dipper figured it could have something to do with the excess or paranormal activity, but-  
  


“Uh, sir?” the deep voice snapped Dipper from his thought, and he turned to find a young, tall, blonde male nurse looking at him with concerned eyes. Dipper froze, his mind swimming in panic. _ ‘Busted’  
  
_

“Me~eyow-wow-wowie~...” a sultry voice came from behind the staff-member. He turned to find Mabel, miraculously reappeared, and looking up at him with croquettish eyes. “Hey there, hot stuff~ would you mind showing me to my Great-Uncle’s room?”  
  


The man looked puzzled, shifting his gaze between the twins, “Um, miss...we...already told you where, uh…” he focused on Dipper’s hospital gown, then turned back to his sister, “Is there something wrong?” Mabel visibly tensed, a nervous smile on her face.  
  


“Uh, uh...MEMORY WIPE!”  
  


There was a flash of movement, Mabel tearing something from the neck of her sweater, and slinging it straight into the orderly’s face.  
  


A sanitary wipe.  
  


The nurse screamed and roared in a...quite frankly melodramatic fashion, as he pawed at his face uselessly.  
  


Mabel immediately snagged her brother’s hand and tugged him down the next flight of stairs to the ground floor.

Dipper’s heart soared. Watching her improvise was like art in motion.

Then came the ground floor; triage. This place was going to be the hard part. It was crawling with nurses, not to mention security…  
  


...or at least, that’s what Dipper had thought.  
  


The moment they hit the landing, the twins heard a familiar voice.  
  


** _“AAAAAAUGH!!! IT’S BURROWING INTO MY BRAAAIIIIN, DOOooOOD!!!”  
  
_ **

As the twins came around the corner into the lobby, Dipper caught a site he wish he had a camera for.  
  


There was Soos, bug-eyed and screaming, clutching his head with tense fingers, flailing into seemingly every wall he could. Orderlies and a least two security guards lunged at him from all sides. Yet, for all their attempts, his “helpless thrashing” managed to sidestep every attempt to restrain him. Dipper’s smile widened. Soos was always was quicker than he looked.  
  


“Let’s go!” Mabel urged, tugging Dipper by the hand. She then assumed the most forced “casually stride” she could, complete with oh-so-innocent whistling, as they made their way to the sliding doors.  
  


Unfortunately, a few security guards were smart enough to still be manning their posts.  
  


The uniformed woman in the booth snapped out a loud **“Hey! You! Stop right there!”** before tearing around her desk after the twins.  
  


Mabel burst into a run, dragging her hapless brother close behind. They rushed out the doors of the emergency room and into the parking lot. Dipper’s hospital gown flapped in the warm, summer night air.  
  


Then, Mabel pulled yet another object from her collar and clicked it. There was a honk from the far end of the parking lot. The head and tail lights of Soos’s old pickup truck flashed on.

And Dipper’s heart nearly exploded with love and glee.

Their hands separated, and Dipper tore around to the passenger side just as Mabel vaulted off the door-step and pulled a Dukes-of-Hazard straight through the driver side window.   
  


The old beast coughed and shuddered to life as Mabel turned the key, and the stereo came on with a frighteningly-fitting power ballad from Soos’s mixtape.  
  


Then, as Dipper realized, too late, who he just put at the wheel of a vehicle, all hell broke loose.  
  


With truly reckless abandon, Mabel slammed on the gas and careened, full-speed _ in reverse _ , out of the parking space.   
  


Tires screamed as the front end spun out and Dipper fought the heaving G-forces by bracing all four limbs around his side of the cab.   
  


They barely missing the pursuing security guard in the uncontrollable slide, and Mabel only just managed to right the thing before slamming sideways into a parked minivan.   
  


Then she slammed the rig into gear and squealed out of the parking lot and off into the night.  
  


The second they were free, Dipper immediately went slack and erupted into roaring laughter. He was joined soon by Mabel as the realization dawned on him...  
  


...He probably could have just requested to be discharged.  
  


They rode the wave of their adrenaline, headbanging and singing along to the rediculous, hair-metal mixtape Soos had, apparently, assembled for the cassette player... a player he’d DIY’d into the dash himself for...some reason.  
  


Every other moment, Dipper couldn’t help but fix his eyes on this mad-goddess of a woman he was, apparently, related to…  
  


...and he realized _ evermore, _ with each passing second, just how hopelessly he was in love with her.

* * *

The mixtape had come to its last, slowest, most melancholic song by the time Mabel dragged the beat-up old lifter down the trail to the Mystery Shack.  
  


The twins sat, rocked and bounced by the rough, barely-maintained gravel road to their childhood summer home; their real home, if they were being honest.  
  


Both were taken by a sort of haze. Their eyes clung to the road, minds rolling over everything that just happened. Somehow, the harrowing escape had seemed such a footnote in the whole ordeal. They were used to panic, to the thrill of danger...even if it had been some time since either had felt that high…  
  


_ “Some time” _ ...suddenly, Dipper found himself thinking… _ ‘How long had it been since they’d be on a proper adventure?’  
  
_

That first summer, they had become an unstoppable team, but…recently, it seemed they were always so busy trying to be adults.

His heart hit the floor.

He was twelve years old again. Had all these years meant nothing?

“Trying to be adults”

“Trying to be adults”

They came to a stop at the edge of the parking lot, and the engine rumbled to a stop...but the keys didn’t fully free themselves from the dash...and so the melancholic ballad continued to roll through the car.  
  


He was slow and reluctant as he turned to face his sister.  
  


All this time...in his fear...in his disgust, he’d…  
  


...He’d…  
  


The thought died as his eyes met Mabel’s.  
  


No resentment. No despair.  
  


Just the same thrill that’d followed them all the way home...and...that same, intense look from the hospital…  
  


They drifted together...and their lips met once more.  
  


Where first there was heat and desperation, now there was cool, soothing comfort; reassurance.   
  


Mabel’s tongue slipped gently into Dipper’s mouth, batting with playful laziness at his own before retreating, egging him on.  
  


She probably didn’t expect the effect it would have on him.  
  


They were alone, finally alone, and she was here, and she was Mabel, so very Mabel.  
  


The frantic churning of his brain gave way.  
  


And then...he, for just a moment, his mind was _ “there” _ ... _ ”back then” _ …  
  


...not when they’d first discovered these feelings…  
  


...but...when they’d last…when they’d “gone too far”...  
  


Except it wasn’t too far this time.  
  


Not this time.  
  


Never again.  
  


No such thing as “too far”.  
  


Not this way.  
  


Not with Mabel.  
  


He yanked away from their kiss, and before she could miss the distance between him, his head slipped out of the neck of his hospital robe, and suddenly he was naked as the day he was born.  
  


He stepped over the center console, and before Mabel had time to react, he was above her, his feet were by hers, hands on her shoulder, hips in her lap, and staring into her eyes.  
  


She yelp and giggled and shock at the gesture, eyes wild.  
  


“Whoah! Hey! Dip! What’re yo-...” Then, he drove his knees up in between the seat and his sister's ass, so that _ she _ was now in _ his _ lap.  
  


His hands pinned her shoulders, and drove his lips into hers, forceful and possessive.  
  


Her back arched as she moaned into him, hands scrambling for a grip of her forbidden lover.   
  


One hand slid down the sparse-but-proud hair of his chest. To anyone else, Dipper was just the tiniest bit doughy, but Mabel knew better. Knowingly, she traced the muscles that hid underneath, toned-hard from years of training.   
  


She grasped the broad, earned shoulders of the man her brother had become, and melted onto her chair as he claimed her with that reverence that was only for her.  
  


His hand tangled into her since-mussed hair, tugging her further into him, cherishing her lips as his free hand drifted down the front of her sweater.   
  


Then, it slipped beneath the homemade fabric and ghosted up her side, slowly, reverently.   
  


Chills rang up her spine as he treasured every inch of her, so similar to him; the softness, the toned strength, the fullness of her figure.   
  


His thumb drifted up her breast, and before she could even finish reeling from the shudders of the action, the digit had found her nipple and forced a gasp from her throat.  
  


Then, her arms were lifting above her head, and the llama sweater was gently discarded to the passenger seat.  
  


Mabel’s bare nipples, stiff from need, pressed into Dipper’s chest as he squeezed her against himself, sucking on her bottom lip. His hardening member pulsed between them, flexing against her quivering sex as it drenched the seam of her scrubs.  
  


Mabel’s eyes were misty when, with the last of her strength, she broke free.  
  


“D-...Dip-...” she gasped, “the...surprise…” The surprise? The consolation prize she’d promised him? She could barely tell why she even cared anymore.  
  


He took a sharp breath in and pressed his forehead to hers.  
  


“I’m not…” he choked, “...I’m saving...that...” He strained. He wanted it as bad as she did, “...but…”  
  


...but…  
  


...there was something he had to make right first...

* * *

Freshmen year.

Normally, they’d only done this when they were late.

Yet...this time, they weren’t late…in fact, they weren’t going anywhere.

Mabel was showering...Dipper had asked to join…

He didn’t know why. He just...felt like it…

They’d been touchy-feely in the shower before.

Hell, the first time they’d been touchy-feely in their adolescent lives, it’d been in the shower.

But, it wasn’t like this…

...or maybe it had been…

...Dipper wasn’t sure…It’d all felt so natural…

The hugging.

The teasing.

The jokes.

The clumsy attempts at washing each other.

The goofy, playful, mutual fondling.

The chaste, platonic kisses on the lips.

...Hell, on at least one occasion, they’d both gotten-off in front of the other in the shower.

After all, they did what they needed to do.

...No judgement...no shame…

...but then...

...then…

...then, there was no joking…

...then, there was nothing playful about the fondling…

...then, they weren’t getting off separately…

...then, all of a sudden, his head was against her folds...

...Her hand was stroking his shaft…

...His thumb was on her clit…

...He was kissing her in an oh so unbrotherly way…

...and when they pulled back…

..._ that _ look in her eyes...

And just like that, he’d decided it was too much, too far…

..._He_ decided they had to stop...

Mabel had protested, gotten upset, looked so hurt...

...but eventually, she agreed.

...because they had to grow up..._some day_...

* * *

One year, five months, sixteen days, and eleven hours they’d spent, severed from this bond that they and they alone shared.  
  


All those days, they’d gone without the tenderness of each other’s touch.  
  


To think he’d actually convinced himself that he could survive the rest of his life without it.  
  


Six scholarships and somehow he was still the dumb sibling.  
  


“I wanna…” he gasped, “I wanna save that for later. Right now, I...I just wanna...pick up...where we left off.”  
  


A look of shock swelled in her eyes, as if she was completely floored; as if she thought she was the only one who remembered.  
  


“Let’s…” Dipper gasped, “Let’s do it right, this time…”  
  


There was breath; breath and furious action. Mabel’s feat swung up past Dipper’s ears and, in moments, the scrub-pants tore from her body. All that was left was his sister’s glistening womanhood.  
  


They both gasped as their tender places met, electricity racking them from head to toe…  
  


...and with it, the final touch of relief…  
  


...and there, cramped into that truck cab, it all returned.  
  


There, pressed together, they were ** _themselves _ ** again.  
  


** _Twins.  
  
_ **

They savored those few moments of idle contact, just staring at each other’s body in unrestrained wonder.  
  


Dipper was the first to move.  
  


He pressed his thumb into the top of his throbbing member and began to rock it, experimentally, against his sister’s moistening warmth.  
  


Mabel was the first to moan, long and satisfied, as she ground her hips against her brother’s.  
  


The pulse of heat quickened between them. As she spread her lips, he began drawing his tip against her here and there, together with the thumb and forefinger of his opposite hand, reacquainting himself, tactile, with every inch of her sex.  
  


After circling her lips twice, even ghosting over her entrance with agonizing restraint, awe bleeding from both his eyes and hers, he took just a moment to press his head into her clit. A song of sharp gasps filled the truck as he gently kneaded himself into it. Then, their breath hitched as, in one, brief instant, hers passed into the eye of his.  
  


Their panting grew needy, and shorter still, as he worked the head down, inch by agonizing inch, back to the mouth of her sex.  
  


There was the tiniest slipping sensation...than another.  
  


Dipper rocked the very tip, not even the full length of his head, into Mabel. Her arousal poured out of her, her heat practically scalding. With tortuous hesitance, he explored her very cusp…  
  


But then, his eyes found hers...and in that moment, found them pleading, but not for what he expected. She shook her head, and he knew.  
  


Not here. Not now.  
  


Both placed a free hand on each other’s chest, and hesitance so great they literally shed tears, pulled their love free of one another.  
  


That had to wait. _ “That” _ wasn’t for “just some night”.  
  


...but...but, Dipper had promised to finish what they’d started that day; that day that felt so long ago it might have been an eternity.  
  


So, Dipper pressed two knuckles against the length of his shaft and...and with a long thrust, ran the length of it, hard, up the outside Mabel’s sex.  
  


She arched her back, gasping and whimpering as she drove her head into the backrest behind her.  
  


And Dipper was there, pressed against her. He scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her, squashing her legs between their shoulders, and bringing his full weight down upon where they met. He rested his forehead against hers, and for a moment, just savored the closeness with her...with Mabel…  
  


He began to grind against her, agonizingly, desperately, longingly. With each buck of his hips, she gasped and sighed, her love soaking his sack as he throbbed against her clit.  
  


The pace accelerated in what felt like seconds as the tempo of the song built to its glorious crescendo.  
  


Sweat glazed them, and their moans turned to barely-gasped words…  
  


_ “Mabes! Ma-...OhgodMabel…”  
  
_

_ “Dipper! Dipperr!! Dipperrr!!! Dippeerrrr!!!!”  
  
_

Their throats tightened, blood racing, skin shrieking.  
  


...held breath; silence, but for wet sounds and choked choked squeaks as they teetered...then, a harmony of anguished wails as there was a final, sharp release...

Dipper collapsed, forehead against Mabel’s clavicle, letting her legs fall to the dashboard behind him. His manhood and inner thighs were completely soaked, stickiness on his stomach, and no doubt Mabel’s, each drenched head-to-toe in sweat.

Aftershocks rattled the twins as their heaving lungs steadied. Finally, Dipper pulled back just enough to once more rest a long, soothing kiss upon her lips. The corners of said lips curled into a smile as she returned the gesture, embracing her brother where he lay.

It felt like ages passed in that tender moment. Finally, just before his mind began to doze, Dipper withdrew, eyes locked on hers, overflowing with love.

...but then, he made the mistake of looking down.

His cheeks flushed red as a mixture of dread, embarassment, and maybe just a twinge of sick thrill filled him.  
  


“_Oh _ jeez. This is gonna be a problem.”   
  


Mabel blinked inquisitively, still smiling, before following Dipper’s gaze down...then left...then right.  
  


It wasn’t just their bellies. Her brother had gone and popped all over both of their front halves, streaking dipping sauce from pelvis to shoulder. Some had even flown clear onto the backrest of the driver's seat, leaving damp patches beside Mabel’s ears.  
  


Between their legs was an absolute horror show. It was impossible to tell how much of the puddle, which saturated cushion and dripped into the legroom, was Mabel’s and how much was Dipper’s, but there was no denying they were both at least partially responsible.  
  


Then, there was her brother’s junk, which...well, the least said about that, the better. To top it off, the whole truck reeked of sex.  
  


“Sweet Mother of Moses, how long were you pent up?” Mabel sputtered, flabbergasted.  
  


Dipper’s words came out frantically fast, “I don’t know! A week? Two? Definitely since we got to Gravity Falls! Maybe longer!”  
  


“Why the heck would you go so long without-...” she stopped herself, remembering all the angst that led to this moment, “Oh. Right.”  
  


As Dipper’s brain slowly shifted gears from panicked overthought to deafening internal screams, Mabel’s awestruck eyes trailed back up to his face.  
  


At which point, she burst out laughing.  
  


“What?!” the young man squealed, “What now?!” Mabel didn’t answer. Instead, she just raised her hand to her brother’s forehead and began tracing her thumb along his forehead. Felt like...the shape of a cross?  
  


“I anoint thee, Father Drr~ripper.” as she said that, Dipper suddenly realized his forehead felt wet. A cursory glance at Mabel showed that her collarbone, where he’d rested his head, hadn’t been saved from the blast. Whatever had been there was now, also, christening his birthmark.  
  


The absurdity of it all!   
  


He couldn’t help himself. It started as snickers, then chuckles, then booming laughter with the last of his breath, and Mabel joined suit.  
  


As they settled, Mabel chimed back in.  
  


“Guess I _ “owe” _ Soos a lot more than _ “one” _ …” Mabel was giggling in weak hysterics.  
  


“W-...we both do” Dipper retorted, still panting.  
  


Their tired, dreamy eyes met once more, feeling more free than they had in...Dipper couldn’t be sure, himself...years? A decade? Their whole life? It felt so inconclusive, but...but it was done. The catharsis was complete...and, from that tremendous, far-away smile, he could tell Mabel felt the same.  
  


“So, uh…” joking aside, the young man couldn’t help but remain aware of his exact situation...mutually naked with his sister, soaked, in the truck of their very close friend, stopped in the middle of a parking lot, without so much as the cab light turned off.   
  


“...shall we?”  
  


Mabel’s dreamy smile twisted into a mischievous smirk, and Dipper felt just the slightest pang of fear.  
  


Her palm found his damp chest, and gingerly pushed him back. In his stupor, Dipper hadn’t questioned it. When his spine was flat against the steering wheel, his sister leaned down to the damp, sticky mess of his stomach…  
  


...gently tucked her lips against his sensitive skin…  
  


...and blew the single, messiest raspberry possible into his belly.  
  


Dipper heaved back, paralyzed, gasping with weeping giggle-fits at the sensation. He frantactly scrambled about for any handhold to grasp as his own cum spattered about like a sprinkler.  
  


Just before his brain gave way completely to frenzy, his weak, petrified palm tapped against her shoulder in surrender.  
  


Mabel pulled away, licking her lips in curiosity. She grimmaced, sticking out her tongue with a ‘beeeeeeh’, before turning back to her brother.  
  


“THAT was for the ear-thing, earlier!” she chuckled. Her brother nodded, weak and dumb-faced and just so very done with today.   
  


She went on, “Oh, and don’t worry about the mess! Mabel’s on the case! Not a mess I can’t make _ OR _ clean up!”  
  


With that, the driver-side door popped open. The cheeky young women then deftly swung her leg over her brother’s head and bounced out the door into the cool night air, still stark-naked and dripping with her twin’s cum.

Her brother nearly had a heart attack.

Dipper sprawled after her, legs stiff from the seiza-sit he’d been doing under Mabel for the past lord-knows-how-long.  
  


“Mabel! Public!”   
  


Instead of heeding his warning, she just grabbed her brother’s hand again and, giggling as she went, streaked with him all the way to the door of the Mystery Shack. The moment she blew through it, he promptly slipped free and slammed it behind them.   
  


He slumped, sighing in relief. Mabel, meanwhile, had taken to casually stretching in the hallway before him. He was thankful for the sight, as watching his sister’s full, glorious figure arch out before him did a lot to take his mind off the possibility that Toby Determined might have been hiding in the bushes.  
  


“Alright!” She piped up, swiveling where she stood to face her brother in a way that made Dipper squirm, “First,” she waggled her eyebrows, “You and I, mister, are going to have ourselves a _ sho~ower _ .” She noted with pride how his eyes scanned from her face, across her boobs, down to her toned, voluptuous patootie _ (‘Heheh. Patootie’) _ , and back again.  
  


“THEN! You’re gonna help me fumigate that truck...and then?” as she paused for dramatic effect, he looked at her, puzzled. “...THEN...we find that big, honkin’ bird of yours!”  
  


That’s when Dipper remembered.  
  


_ ‘Oh, right. We broke out to save a Hummingbird…’  
  
_

He let out a tired sigh and cracked a smile.   
  


_ ‘Never a dull moment…’ _


	5. The Gauntlet p1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ………………………...I really just...cannot leave well enough alone, can I?
> 
> To think this story was originally conceptualized as a cute little 2-part fluff fic. Yet, no matter how much I wrote, I kept finding reasons why it shouldn’t be.
> 
> And so, here I am, a year older and the antithesis of wiser, with a fic that’s approaching four times the length I’d originally intended.
> 
> If you need something to blame, blame my complete lack of sense-for-proportion. Ever since I conceived of this expedition, I had pretty much ALL of the ensuing events mapped out in my mind…
> 
> ...and yet, for some ungodly reason, my dumb-ass genuinely thought I could cover all this territory in the span of a single, final chapter.
> 
> Then, on the brink of completing this “chapter”, I decided to check how much I’ve written and, GOOD GOD, I’VE ALMOST DOUBLED THE LENGTH OF THE FIC WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING.
> 
> I can’t even tell you how many times I thought I should cut this part down...or even cut it out, entirely. The story would probably read a lot smoother without this bloated mess…
> 
> ...and yet, almost everyone I spoke to on the matter seemed pretty adamant on me keeping this section, even as it ballooned wildly out of control.
> 
> I wish I could blame this endeavour that I’ve unleashed upon you, my dear reader, on these people. Yet, at the end of the day, it’s my damn story, and no matter how much encouragement or criticism I receive, the judgement call does come down to me. It was my choice to finish it the way I started it, and I have to live with that.
> 
> God bless everyone on Discord who stuck with me up to this point. Lord knows none of them needed to, and none of them deserved what I put them through.
> 
> You know who you are, but I'd be more than happy to thank you publicly on the last chapter, if you wish. Lord knows you deserve it.
> 
> …………
> 
> As for the business itself, I’ve decided to split this chapter into parts. Note that, thematically, this whole next segment is supposed to exist as a singular unit, hence the title of “The Gauntlet”...but, I’m already torturing people enough by subjecting them to this trainwreck in the first place. It’s the least I can do to split it up into easily digestible pieces.
> 
> Also, I should probably say that this part isn’t exactly...vital to the final product. I just felt that, after seeing Dipper and Mabel in action, independently, it would be strange not to show them working as a unit. Plus, it’s a Gravity Falls fic, and somehow it just doesn’t feel like Gravity Falls without some amount of adventure.
> 
> Nevertheless, you could probably skip the next three chapters and not really miss much. Pretty much everything important that happens gets re-established in the final chapter anyway.
> 
> Honestly, I may still cut this part out in later edits...maybe just allude to it in the story proper, then post it as a spinoff. I don’t know. I just promised myself I’d have something for you guys by the Twins’ birthday and...well, here we are.
> 
> (Incidentally, if you prefer this version of the story, I suggest you save it, in case I do make drastic changes.)
> 
> I suppose I’ve talked enough. Thank you for going on this journey with me, each and every one of you.
> 
> …………

Showers. Why was it always showers with them?

Water warmed them, riverlets flowing along every groove and curve as steam rose from their bodies. 

Dipper’s hands glided across the damp, smooth skin of his twin; from the thick strength of her thighs, up around the full breadth of her hips, along the shallow valley of her sides, cupping her supple breasts, then around and back down her spine, finally coming to squeeze the firm thickness of her ass before circling around to do it all over.

Mabel’s own hands were no less busy. In an oh-so-familliar way, she rocked his head against, but never into, the heat between her legs. She stroked his shaft as their hips bucked ever so slightly, unable to help themselves. 

Her opposite hand wrapped into his curls and pulled him into a long, passionate kiss...not that she really needed to. Now that they were truly alone, little in the world could keep her brother’s lips off of hers.

Dipper’s breath was beginning to sharpen. Mabel smiled into his lips, pulling away just for a moment.

“Got s’more dipping sauce for me, Bro-Bro?”

He didn’t respond, simply leaning in to kiss her again. Even so, he winced, desperately trying to still his lungs.

He was close, but she clearly wasn’t. He had to hold on just a bit longer, for her sake. Still, the effort was killing him.

If Mabel’s mouth wasn’t busy, she’d have shook her head.  _ ‘Always overthinking, this one.’ _ As she heard him gasp a little in a certain, telling way, she made her move.

Again, the girl pulled back, this time far enough that her twin couldn’t close the gap so easily.

_ “Hey Dip!” _ she whispered excitedly.

His eyes lidded open halfway, drunk on lust. He found her gazing back at him with a look that sparkled with a strange kind of joy.

_ “Look!” _ Then, her glance darted down, and he made the mistake of following it.

There, he witnessed the whole of Mabel’s body before his; the swell of her breasts, the flare of her hips, that slightest, adorable little belly of hers, and of course the point where their throbbing love met. 

On cue, her hand that held Dipper’s hair released, slipping down to her breast and tweaking one of her nipples hard. Simultaneously, she doubled the pace at which she stroked his member, and rolled her hips dramatically, this way and that, giving him fleeting glimpses of her slit in all its glory.

For just a second, the motion slid the very tip of his head inside her and, well...that was that. Even half that stimuli would’ve been too much.

“f-Fuck-!”

Dipper’s hands froze here they were, clumsily gripping whatever they could of his sister, as his body tensed, eyes screwed shut, and his manhood pulsed hard.

Then, a little squeak escaped Mabel’s lips, followed by a gasp of  _ “Oh! Ohmygosh!” _

It didn’t quite sound like an orgasm, but Dipper’s mind was too busy unraveling to speculate what the hushed words could mean. He simply stood, stiff, on weak legs as he drained himself in waves against his sister’s sex.

Finally, he rested his forehead against her sister’s shoulder.

_ “God...Mabes,” _ he whispered,  _ “I’m sorry…” _

She chuckled nervously, “I’m, uh...I’m sorry too?”

Dipper lifted his head to look at her, puzzled. She blushed with a guilty smile and avoided his eyes. Oddly, she then backed away.

“I, uh...I might have cheated a bit by accident…” this only confused Dipper further. Before he could question it, she eased herself down to sit on the rim of the tub, slipped her fingers between her legs…

...and spread her lips.

There, amid the wetness of arousal and shower water, a small but unmistakably thick dollop of white was squeezed from within her and oozed down the crack of her ass.

Dipper’s jaw hit the floor.  ** _‘F U C K’_ **

“Heheh...looks like kitty stole a snack…” the guilt on her face deepened, “I...I guess this kinda ruins things for tomo- _ MPH?!! _ ”

In seconds, Dipper had dropped to his knees, seized his sister by both sides of her face, and  _ devoured  _ her lips like a starving animal. The sight of his cum dripping from her had awoken something in the young man. He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t care.

Mabel scrambled to catch up, but couldn’t help the decedent moan of submission that rumbled from deep within her. As his tongue swirled and pinned her own, she racked what was left of her rapidly silencing mind for any clue as to where this came from. How could her dork of a brother do this to her with just a kiss?

She didn’t get far.

“No.” he grumbled, firmly, barely breaking the furious liplock as he did, “Just...an appetizer...main course...later...but now...you  ** _owe_ ** me something.”

At that, he pulled free of her lips with a commanding finality, and carved a path of hard, suckling pecks down her jaw, to her pulse, along her neck and her collarbone. 

He continued down her chest, stopping only to teeth at her breast and force more delicious squeaks from her throat. 

Then, down past her stomach, breaking off to nibble and suck at her inner thigh, before breathing deep of her scent.

She looked down at him, eyes glazed over, and barely had the sense remaining to form his name, “ _ Dipperrr? _ ” before another pair of throaty moans were chased from her as he gently slipped a finger past her drooling lips. 

With it, he attempted to tease whatever was left of him from inside of her, but found no more. It seemed the majority of his load hadn’t gotten so far.

She whimpered as he withdrew the finger. He looked up at her, and she swore; the lust in his eyes threatened to burn through her.

“If you get to cheat, then  **so do I.** ”

As his mouth and tongue bore down on her most sensitive place, her nerves buzzed alive, louder and brighter than she ever thought possible. The last of her conscious thoughts erupted into fireworks, with the dying scraps barely managing to wonder.  _ ‘How? How does a dork like him learn to do  _ ** _that_ ** _ ?’ _

As the orchestra of her body began to climb to a whole new peak she had never felt with anyone else, she found herself content in never knowing…

...but, deep down in the depths of her subconscious, she wasn’t  _ really _ surprised.

Her Bro-Bro  _ was  _ always amazing...

* * *

Cleaning the truck turned out to be...interesting.

Dipper wound up having to help way more than either twin had expected, what with Mabel’s dumbstruck giggling and shaking all over. Really, she should probably be riding this out in bed, but she insisted. They’d wasted far too much time already. 

Dipper could tell she wanted to feel guilty about leaving the hummingbird for so long, but he imagined it was hard for her to do so in her...state. For his part, he felt kinda bad too, but that too was mostly overshadowed by his overwhelming pride at doing this to her.

To...his  ** _SISTER_ ** _ … _

_ ‘NOPE! No more of that! Think of something else’  _

“Shut up, Tyrone. I got this.”

“Hwer y’talkin to?”

“No one, Mabel!” Dipper briefly wondered if that blow to the head had been worse than the doctors had said, but shrugged it off.

The young man never really had that much “practice” in the love department. Sure, he’d gotten to such a  _ level  _ with maybe one or two girls, but he didn’t learn much. 

Things with the first, a girl named Miranda, had started with a disaster and not gotten much better. He wasn’t really surprised when she left him for someone else, and though he told himself there were plenty of problems with the relationship, he couldn’t help but feel his poor performance was part of it.

The second, Chloe, had been a lot more understanding. With her support, and a little advice from Mabel, he’d brought his performance up to “middling at best”, but then she moved back home to Utah and that was the end of it.

Mabel, though? Somehow, he just  _ got _ Mabel. Somehow, it felt like he knew her body, inside-and-out without even having to  _ think  _ about it. 

Part of that could be chalked up to how open they’d been with their sexuality. Yet, as he sponged up another stain, something inside him theorized that the body-swapping incident had something to do with it. They  _ were _ kids at the time, but nevertheless, he wondered.

Regardless of why, Dipper couldn’t help the smug expression that lingered on his face...and as Mabel began to come down from her high, she clearly took notice. 

His sister said nothing, but met his stupid grin with a look of curiously-mischevious indignation, as if to say  _ “Oh yeah, “Big Dipper”? We’ll see about that…” _

He figured it was inevitable he’d be made to pay for this hubris at some point, but he didn’t care. Beneath it all, he was honestly just overjoyed to have made the woman he loved feel so good.

By the time they finished cleaning the truck, it was almost midnight, which was troubling to say the least. Marching into the Gravity Falls Forest after dark is never a smart idea. 

After triangulating the general trajectory of the giant hummingbird (simple enough), they filled up two water bottles with sugar water. Thankfully, they’d pre-packed a collection of ruck-sacks with survival gear for short-notice, so they really only needed to get food and hydration in order. Then, after a quick detour to the bunker to pocket a size-changing crystal, the twins were off into the thicket. 

They knew these half-overgrown trails well, having carved them out personally in high school, back when summers were more free and adventuring was still top-priority. Even so, Dipper was hyper-aware of every noise and movement in the underbrush. Underestimating these woods was a death sentence, even for the prepared.

He might have called the whole thing off if there’d been a full moon out. However, with a bit of luck, they found themselves hiking beneath a nice, safe quarter; bright enough for their eyes to adjust to, but dark enough to help keep them hidden.

Plus, there was the x-factor.

Were he making the journey with anyone else, he might be panicked. He might genuinely fear for his life, and more so for his companion.

But he wasn’t walking with just anyone.

He was walking with Mabel  _ God-Damn _ Pines.

It’d been a while, sure, but they were still the Mystery Twins. 

Always have been, always will be, and as his sister took his hand in hers, he felt for sure that everything was going to be alright.

* * *

About fifteen minutes into their search, Dipper noticed it. 

It was subtle at first; a rustle in the bushes here, a crunch of leaves behind them there. None of it seemed connected initially. So much lurked in these woods, he’d be more concerned if he didn’t hear anything. His ears grew sharper with each passing moment, though, and soon he began to notice patterns, pace, direction. Whatever it was, it was following them.

“A Hide-Behind” was his first guess, which felt nostalgic. The twins hadn’t run into one...or, rather, been stalked by one in years. Still, despite knowing the creature was harmless, something nagged at him. It wasn’t long before he realized neither he nor his sister had once heard the creature’s characteristic rattling sound.

He turned to Mabel, and the look she gave said she heard it, too. They nodded together with serious eyes.

At a familiar forked tree, they began wandering off the path. To an observer, it’d look like they were just losing their way. Sure enough, whatever it was followed, and drew ever closer as the bush thickened.

Their pace slowed as they were forced to weave around brambles, over dry streambeds, and through dense foliage. The “walls” of the wood closed in around them, and with it all, the telling noises crept closer and closer, until they could practically feel its hot breath on their skin.

Then...a flurry of motion.

The twins kicked into a sprint and burst from the treeline. into the clear of a golden field, hands still clutched together. 

Dipper whipped around, wrenching off his backpack, and drawing from it a handheld floodlight, snapping it on. 

The pink halo that fired from it struck the wall of green behind them. An unnatural warping noise rang out as trees shrunk to the size of broccoli-heads, and anything smaller shriveled to near-nothing.

“Gotcha!” Mabel shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

By the time the commotion had ended, the clearing had expanded by several square yards, depleting any cover their pursuer might have had…

...and yet, there was nothing.

Dipper snapped off the crystal-augmented flood-lamp, and both twins drew smaller flashlights to begin scouring the new territory for any newly palm-sized terror…

...Yet...they came up empty-handed.

Dipper sighed in relief, and maybe a bit of disappointment-

...only for Mabel to take him by the shoulder and bring a finger to his lips…

...He hushed, just in time, to hear a slightly more hurried rustle trailing off into the woods. Whatever it was, it’d slipped away...and would likely be back. 

As it retreated, however, Dipper managed to spot the faintest hint of its silhouette as it moved through the trees. He couldn’t get a sense for its shape…

...but one thing about it made his skin crawl; as it followed them, it had been almost silent, to the point where it had taken some time to work out if it was even there at all…

...but...the movement he’d seen, in that moment...was through a gap in the tree branches almost  ** _eighteen feet in the air_ ** .

_ “Dang…” _ his sister whispered, breathing uneven,  _ “Did you see that?” _

He took her by the hand once more, stroking his thumb on the back of her hand, comfortingly.

_ “Yeah. Just keep an eye out. We’ll stay in the open for now. This way won’t take us too far off track.” _ He tried to be confident, but when his eyes met his sisters, she could tell he was as rattled as she was. He smiled, chuckling nervously.  _ “Been a while, huh?” _

She cracked a smile, “Yeah! Been a…” but, as she turned to look towards their route, she froze. Dipper glanced over his shoulder, and realized why.

There was a reason they remembered this field...this golden field. 

Bad memories of an incident involving Mole People came back to him. He could already feel Mabel’s breath starting to give. Little shudders began to rack her body. Where once, she’d felt light on her feet, she now stood, planted firm, unwilling to move, as her eyes darted about, scanning for holes in the earth.

Dipper hurried around to her front, taking her by the shoulders as she began to hyperventilate, knees growing weak.

“Hey, Mabel; look at me.” she found his gaze, struggling to keep her breath under control. He stroked her shoulders, eyes filled with sympathy. “It’s going to be okay...alright? Just breathe. I’m here this time.” After a moment’s hesitation, she gently nodded, then leaned in to wrap her arms around her brother, desperately tight.

* * *

Navigating the field was slow going. They had to watch every step they took, never fully planting a foot until they knew the ground was solid. The whole time, Mabel clung to his arm, her head swiveling all about, watching for even the slightest shape to poke out from the earth.

At least once, the dirt gave way beneath Dipper’s cautious stride, and he just barely caught himself before falling into a perfectly round hole. At the sudden rush, Mabel seized him, clinging tight and dragging him back from the precipice, breath racing in his ear. He turned to comfort her, but found her already taking deep, slowing breaths.

“I’m fine.”

Thankfully, they made it to the other side of the clearing without incident, and as Mabel approached the trees, she visibly slackened with a deep sigh of relief.

She hesitated for a moment, as if contemplating something...then took one last look behind her…

With a sharp gasp, she flung herself back so hard she fell on her ass, and scrambled until her back hit a pine tree. 

Dipper’s spun and saw it immediately; an all-too familiar shape; tall and spider-shaped, with a humanoid torso, great, shovel-like paws and green eyes that blazed in the dark. A mole-person.

Dipper immediately darted to Mabel’s side, putting himself between her and the subterranean beast. She snatched ahold of his sleeve as he did. He watched it where it stood, ready to snatch up his sister and make a break for it the moment the beast so much as flinched…

...it was only after a few minutes of the staredown...that he realized it wasn’t watching them.

There was the faintest sound to their right, and the mole-person visibly shuddered before darting back into its hole.

Dipper glanced over to Mabel, who’s eyes were still fixed on the glade. Had he imagined what he just heard? He turned right…

...and there...he saw it…

...it wasn’t close, that much was clear, but it was there, just barely discernible through the light tree cover. At first, Dipper could have sworn it was a moose; long, spindly legs beneath a hulking body, and what appeared to be antlers. It only took a moment, though, to realize it was nothing of the sort. 

For one thing, it was almost twenty feet tall. It’s legs were far too thin, too long, closer to stilts than anything. It’s body was broad and bulbous. 

Its antlers were narrow, thin, gnarled and crooked like the branches of a dwarf hazelnut tree. They spidered out horizontally from its shadowed mass, forming two half-halos of long, sharp points. 

Most of all, its two eyes, centered in its bulk, faced directly forward, looking straight at the twins. They blazed with an eerie white shine in the misty night air.

For the first time in years, Dipper felt genuine horror; not panic or dread or mature concern, but that truly sick feeling one gets when looking upon an entity that should simply not  _ EXIST _ for the very first time. It’d been so long, he’d almost forgotten the sensation.

Seconds stood still as he knelt by his twin, eye to eye with the shrouded behemoth. His legs burned and stiffened. His mouth grew dry. It wasn’t like him to freeze. Not like this. What was happening?

He was mesmerized, staring into those shimmering orbs, only coming to as a  _ third  _ set of limbs, a pair of great and terrible arms, unfurled from its shape. They stretched so unnaturally that it seemed as if they could touch the ground at full-length. The appendages swept up and forward, needle-like digits, almost a foot long apiece, reaching out and grasping a pair of narrow trees ahead of its form. 

It was only then that Dipper realized the... _ thing _ was  ** _approaching_ ** . The whole time, it’d been creeping forward, inch-by-silent inch on those impossible, stiltish legs. In his dreamlike state, he’d never noticed.

He shook his sister violently.

_ “Mabel!” _ he hissed. 

There was no response. She was still watching the field. He didn’t even have to look to know.

_ “Mabel!” _ this time, she turned, and was stricken again, just as Dipper had been.

_ “Oh...Oooh no...” _ the woman murmured, pulling her feet back under her with a sloth like caution.

_ “Okay. No sudden moves. Not yet.”  _ his hushed voice raced, bordering on hysteria _ , “I need you to…” _ both twins gasped as one of its legs curled up, hauntingly slow, and stepped over a nearby bush, bringing it even closer. It seemed to glide more than walk.  _ Why were its features still so hard to make out??  _

_ “...I need you to keep an eye on…“it”...I need to work out where to go. We can’t just run. We’ll get lost, cornered, maybe hurt. We need a plan.” _ The tiny, spider-like movements of  _ its  _ legs grew more apparent with each, weightless step _ . _

_ “......Okay…” _

Time was of the essence, but still Dipper hesitated. His mind screamed that looking away from this being, even for a moment, meant death. He blinked and strained as he brutally levered his gaze from the living obelisk.

The moment he was free of its pull, a wet, icy panic seized him from the skull-down. He clenched his teeth until they hurt, screwing his eyes shut, the back of his mind expecting death or worse. 

With sickening will, he forced his eyelids open, and began frantically scanning the horizon. His compass flicked open a fraction of a second later, boyscout-like awareness, gleaned from years of negotiating this strange Oregon terrain, rushing back to him. His mind raced in the way only his could.

_ ‘The Hollow...The Ravine...was it close enough? Would it be enough to stop it?’ _

His nerves practically screamed themselves into a migraine as he squeezed every scrap of experience and expertise for every last possibility, every alternative, every obstacle.

_ ‘No. This could work. It has to work…’ _

_ “Dipper…” _ his sister’s voice was weak and broken. Certain of himself, he turned back and…

**T H E R E**

It was right on top of them, no more than three meters away. Dipper’s mind flew asunder. Why hadn’t Mabel said anything? Had she been hypnotized like he was? Could it cover distances far faster than he expected?  ** _How could he still not tell any details about it?!?!_ **

The vantablack figure stopped before them. As it's horrible, unnatural arms wreathed up, with a sluglike pace, from his underbelly, up over its head, an utterly indescribable roar broke out from it, like the eerily familiar sound of dimensions being ripped open that’d long ago burned into the twins’ brains.

_ “DIPPER!!” _

His sister’s hand was in his own.

They shot to their feet.

Hiking boots tore the ground to shreds as they sprinted off; down a ditch, then hard left and up a hill through a break in the thicker woods.

The next unspeakable sound that found them was loud enough to send their ears ringing. A shuddering pain wracked their skulls, but still Dipper pulled them on. 

He swerved them to the right at the crest of the hill, bursting low through the thick undergrowth that flanked the path. 

He practically  _ felt _ the crash of trees behind him.

His palm squeezed his sister’s. 

The thing was nipping at his heels. He knew it.

He came upon another dry river bed, and with a shout of “ **Jump!** ” vaulted the gap.

He prayed his sister’s hearing had returned enough to catch it.

His footing nearly gave way on the landing, and his stomach plummeted at the thought that Mabel might slip and fall.

To his relief, her balance had proved greater than his. She raced up beside him, taking his arm and shoulder to balance him and shove him on.

Their hearing began to return just in time to pick up on the crashing of that force-of-nature, barrelling over the shallow crevice.

Then, another howl, and there was silence again...but for the ringing in their ears…

They came to another hill and leapt from it to skip the descent, scrambling on the soft earth as they hit the opposite rise. 

They looked back just in time to see the living nightmare cresting the hill, practically gliding down on top of them.

They only just barely scrambled out of the way.

Almost there.

_ Almost there. _

Earth tore.

The forest roared.

And they saw it;

**Ravine #7...aka “MABEL’S FAULT”** **.**

The tremendous, toothy maw that ripped the earth asunder before them grew closer with every thunderous step.

As they came upon it, Dipper threw his arms around his sister.

_ ‘Please, Mabel; PLEASE know what to do.’ _

...The plunge in front...

...The beast behind...

...Death, a certainty...

...and then, the glint of steel…

…......because, of course, Mabel brought it.

The last image Dipper saw was the glorious flash of Mabel’s grappling hook, drawn from the lower hem of her sweater.

Then, wrenching, and a violent blur.

* * *

Dipper crashed into a heap on the other side of the gorge, as Mabel expected. 

Even after all their time adventuring, it never ceased to amaze her how uncoordinated her brother could be.

Mabel, by comparison, made a perfect, catlike, four-point landing.

She probably would’ve been worried for her bumbling bro-bro, but thankfully the earth was wet and soft, and she knew by now that the young man was made of sturdier stuff than most. He  _ was  _ a Pines, after all.

More importantly, there was the thing at their heels. She whipped around to face it...and nearly hucked chunks.

She hated it. She really did, but there it was; stopped at the other side of the gap, just as she knew Dipper had planned. Those evil eyes practically burned chunks out of her, but it was abundantly clear that even its janky, stretchy figure couldn’t cross the weirdness-induced fault-line the twins had just launched across.

Perhaps, for the first time in her life, she felt glad for Weirdmageddon and the landscape-reshaping consequences it caused.

Her relief didn’t last long, though.

There was a horrible, sickening crackling as the figure began to shake violently. 

To Mabel’s horror, little by little, it’s legs began to stretch out from its body like some kind of time lapse plant growing video. She didn’t need to see what the action was about. She knew in an instant. It was doing some freaky, shape-shifty thing to get large enough to span the gap and come after them.

They didn’t have much time. Thankfully, Mabel knew there was only one reason Dipper would’ve come this way.

All of Mabel’s racing thoughts passed in a moment. By the time she reached her brother, he was only just barely pulling himself from the mud. She seized his shoulder and yanked him to his feet. 

He didn’t even need to look back. He trusted her enough to know there was nothing good waiting for them behind.

Mabel allowed herself to shed one, small tear. She loved these woods. They were more precious to her than anything…

Yet, for all her passion, there wasn’t much in the world that could sicken and unsettle her as much as what lurked here.

As the twins disappeared into the undergrowth, they heard one final, gut-churning roar from the creature, as if it was reminding them that it wouldn’t be far behind.


	6. The Gauntlet p2

Over the hills.

Down long, steep slopes.

Through thicker and thicker woods.

Zigging left and zagging right.

Twisting and turning, sometimes in on themselves, yet somehow never crossing their path twice.

Their way seemed impossible. Anyone, navigating by any natural sense of direction, would’ve stopped and screamed to the high heavens that they were going in circles.

The twins knew better.

So, through impossible spirals, down and down into the soft thicket they darted until the leaves blotted out the moonlight, and all sense of up and down gave way to madness.

Then, just when an outsider would’ve descended into gibbering madness…

...the thick gave way…

...and there was warm, beautiful lights…

...pink and green and blue on gold…

...of great, low mushrooms, and deep, hidden berries, and high-hanging pinecones…

...all shimmering and murmuring in brilliant neon, like tiny lanterns in the cool, humming dark…

Such as it is in The Hollow.

Mabel had stumbled upon this place some time ago. Trying to find it again took the better part of three years, and had accidentally led her to that golden glade that haunted her nightmares. Even Ford couldn’t find this place.

Yet, now, both brother and sister knew the way all too well.

The Cradle of Magic. The Hollow.

Their pace slowed to a crawl, tiptoeing through the moss and stones, so as to disturb as little as possible.

Still, for all their efforts, it wasn’t long before spores; brilliant, spinning, shimmering, erupted from the ground and bathed them in light.

Dipper winced. The last time he’d visited this place had been a...bad time, to say the least. He braced for the worst…

...but Mabel simply stood, as the flecks of starlight danced around her. With one hand, she reached into them, fingers dancing amid their drifting path, as if to caress the very spirit of their motion…

...and, with her other hand, she wove her fingers amid her brother’s, stroking her index finger across the crook of his thumb in slow, gentle strokes.

“Sssssshhhhh~” she hushed him, comforted him.

Weak and hesitant, he parted his eyelids. His blood chilled as he saw the motion.

It was slight at first. Little feet scampered behind and beneath the pastel beacons of the brush surrounding them. His breath hitched, expecting the foul rushing that’d found him the last time he saw the forbidden kin of this place.

Yet...no such force took him...and he couldn’t help but wonder why…

There was a brief twinkle that bounced into view. Dipper’s eyes traced it as it swirled along the ground and came to a stop on the tip of Mabel’s hiking boot.

It was a forest imp, no more than seven inches tall, brash and full of tricks. Glowing pink, the tiny, barely-visible figure glanced up at his sister. She knelt almost immediately, minding her footing so as not to trample anything as she did.

“Hello, there~!” she cooed to it. To Dipper’s surprise, a gentle, blissful smile crossed its face.

...Yet, it didn’t last long. Within seconds, its gaze drifted down her form, and its look turned to a dull disgust.

The pointy-eared, toyetic gremlin-thing tugged at the leg of the nylon over-pants she used for hiking. Its face twisted further in frustration and confusion, as if unsettled by the very presence of the garment.

“Oh! Sorry! One sec!” Mabel chirped. She rose sharply...but slowed as the imp bounced back in obvious surprise at her sudden movement.

She turned to her brother, her eyes apologetic.

“If I’d known we were coming this way, I would’ve insisted on  _ organic... _ ” she waxed.

He nodded.

This deep into the woods, creatures were insulted and sickened by anything “not of-the-earth”...and, right now, everything they were wearing was weatherproof and not the least bit natural.

Mabel was the first to go; schucking her backpack, followed by her windbreaker and both layers of pants, plus underwear. Even though she always knitted her sweaters with nothing but 100% wool, she ditched her turtleneck all the same. Dipper wondered if it was to be “fair”, as he’d have to strip to nothing to be accepted.

Then again, perhaps she just enjoyed the freedom.

Their clothes finally scattered, the bashful young man couldn’t help but take in the magnificence of his sister’s figure as it shone under the warm gleam of the luminescent plantlife. Every curve, every freckle, practically came alive as he traced his eyes up her robust shape.

As he found the adorable roundness of her face, he realized she’d been eyeing him just the same. Their eyes met, and she softly giggled out,  _ “Stop flexing, you goober~!” _

Dipper blushed. He hadn’t even realized he’d been so tense. He took a deep breath, and let himself go slack in the cool midnight air.

And there they were; bare and raw and pure and with nothing left to hide. 

Had there been a breeze, Dipper might have felt more than a little chilly...yet the air was still here; not stagnant, always fresh, but quiet and calm.

Mabel’s hand found his again, and she leaned into him, resting her shoulder against his.

“See? That wasn’t so bad…”

He scoffed only the tiniest bit, “You act like I haven’t been through this before.”

“Yeah...but you were always so...weird about it back then…”

“Can you blame me? I thought I was gonna die back then!” His indignation felt forced, and died soon. His sister’s mirth, coupled with the stillness of this place, somehow set him at ease...

Their wistful gazes fell to the imp, who nodded up at them with a sort of smug look of approval. There was a faint rumble, and in seconds, a swarm of shimmering blue pillbugs wormed from the earth. They convened beneath the newly-discarded garments, forming a carpet of tiny legs, and trudged off through the tree cover with their cargo in tow.

“They better not steal those…” Dipper mumbled, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Mabel snickered, “Oh, calm down, my beloved  _ Lord Paranoid’ _ ~...” she made sure to say Lord Paranoid’ with a deep, dumb, mocking tone, giving a tiny shake of her head as she rolled her eyes.

Dipper’s eyes narrowed with a smirk, but said nothing.

The moment the bugs had disappeared from sight through the narrow, wooded craigs, the imp spun on the ball of his heel and began prancing and pouncing off through the thick of the hollow.

The twins watched it, then turned to each other. Their wry grins going soft on their lips…

...Then followed…

* * *

...Under branches…

...Over roots…

...and on into the weald…

Little footsteps followed the twins, darting and skipping and dancing about them. With each moment, with every inch, the density of luminescent plant life grew and grew…

...and all the while, the gaps between the trees tightened to such a tunnel-like bore that the young Pines had to hunch in order to pass through.

The path grew more and more hilly, more twisted, winding and cresting until up and down grew vague at best and the twins were forced to crawl, and all the while, the lights grew thicker, swirling tighter, and brighter, and evermore alive.

His experience with the paranormal preceded him. Dipper’s instincts screamed at him that this meant danger. Never was rapidly-escalating weirdness a good sign.

Yet, he carried on, and soon, frantic motion gave way to stillness…

...just as they finally passed from the mouth of the wooded crawlspace…they emerged…

...into the expansive, open grotto...of tremendous, tangled roots, lit by the moon, that cut a galaxy of lights upon the floor of the recess. 

The stout, widely-spaced trees, their branches long and gnarled, were sick with a three-dimensional city of tiny, glowing, fungal homes. 

Some were giant, with multiple entrances that sylphs and pixies and brownies wandering in-and-out at their leisure. Some were small with equally tiny inhabitants, living alone in their tiny hideaways with their tiny lives. 

There were dense crossroads and lively, mushroom-city squares, perched not  _ just  _ below the trees, but on the sides of them as well. Some homes even sat, defiantly-inverted on the thick, wooded arms of the ceiling.

Little by little, the townsfolk began to notice the strange, towering interlopers. Many simply stared, quizzically. Some fled back into their hideaways, fearing the worst.

Then, there were a handful of high-pitched cheers, and the misty, ghostly forms of about a dozen sylphs rushed into the air. They twinkled like a dozen, oversized christmas lights, almost seven inches tall a piece.

“MA~A~ABEl!!!!” they squealed with glee, and Mabel responded in kind.

“GIRLS!!!”

Dipper couldn’t help but smile. He watched, leaning arms crossed, as his sister complimented the tiny faye on their dresses, hair, and accessories, fawning over their glow and how large the younger ones had grown since she last saw them. Little by little, the crowd began to warm up to her, either on their own, or as Mabel began directing her compliments outward, intentionally beckoning them. 

Tiny, glowing children swirled around her head, or dove off her shoulders, or slipped into her hair, effortlessly weaving it into braids decorated with flowers; from tiny white clusters of perennials, to vibrant pansies of purple and gold...names he never would’ve memorized if not for Mabel, he was sure…

God, she was beautiful…

...and never ceased to amaze him…

...Everywhere she went, she made friends…

...Ten years ago, he would’ve been jealous…

...Now, he was just delightfully, blissfully speechless…

...She made him feel warm just by looking at her.

……………..What were they here for, again?

He heard an ethereal chirp, and looked down to find a tiny, golden sprite humming in place next to his…

He suddenly realized his admiration of his sister had become... _ physically _ apparent…

He stammered, twisting his body away from the tiny, curious interloper. “uhHEY-” 

...Then, cleared his throat at the apparent crack of his voice, “Hey, little...girl?” it glanced up at him, inquisitively, “Yeah, girl! Little girl!”

He felt aimless in his words...

“How are y-...I mean…”

It glanced back towards his exposed manhood, then back to his eyes...

...then, all of a sudden, it’s tiny face visibly lit up, and it pulsed a strobe a vibrant pink.

Fast, but...not really fast?

...everything seemed fast to Dipper right now…

...it darted up, and caught the tip of his finger…

...its pull was barely noticeable...but he didn’t really have the will to resist it…

...did he feel lighter?

...it led him…

...gently…

...to his sister…

Dipper saw the tiny folk turn to him...and all at once, they pulsed the same pink as the sprite had…

A mirth of murmurs and eager giggles, and the odd, tiny cheer, flowed out from the group, and Mabel turned to see her brother with...dreamy eyes…

...She stifled a listful chucked…“Oh...hey Dip…”

Her voice was so beautiful...

...She rose to her feet, meeting her gaze with his…

...warmth rose in him...as he knew it did within her…

...the little ones began to swirl...and dance...about them…

...strobing just...the prettiest...shades of pink...and gold…

...and Dipper...couldn’t...ever imagine...being happier…

...his eyes traced down her figure…

...as hers did to his…

...and they found themselves breathless…

...like they were seeing each other…

... _ really _ seeing each other…

...for the first time…

...they admired each other...with their eyes...and their fingertips...in languid indulgence…

...the blissful cheers of the spirits rose…

...celebrating...love…

...real...love…

...Dipper’s...eyes...met...Mabel’s…

...they shared a wordless question…

...would it be so bad...to stay here?

...his love...below...nuzzled at hers…

...it felt...good…

...he could...join with her…

...........just like this………..

…………………………………. _ ‘no…’ _

_ ……………………..no… _

...........”No…”

...Mabel caught his eyes...a look of hurt…

...She wanted it so badly…

...not this...but…

“...Birthday...Mabel...surprise…”

She blinked slowly…

“...What’s a...birthday?”

Dipper...wasn’t sure...but...something in him...deep, buried...screamed that it was important…

...Mabel’s wandering fingers came to rest on his love…

“Dip...can’t we...just…”

...Warm…

...Wet…

...Welcoming…

……………. _ ‘Fuck, I don’t even care, anymoe…’ _

Shut Up, Tyrone.

...The last vestiges of a titanium will...brought his hands to his sisters shoulders.

This was not why they were here, he could feel it. Something...something was terribly wrong...but, more than that, this wasn’t...this wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.

Mabel whimpered, her heart visibly breaking behind her eyes...but...there was something they were missing...it was…

**H E R E**

Lights went dark, warmth went ice-cold, and the rhythmic dancing of the fair folk gave way to a heaving storm as hundreds of villagers barrelled into homes and hideaways.

Dipper caught his sister in his arms and shielded her from the maelstrom of insectoid wings, once soft, now wiry.

Then, before the last sylph had even taken cover, they heard the din, the howl, the earthshaking roar, so loud it rattled Dipper’s ribs. He and Mabel cupped their ears as they screamed in pain.

It had found them.

How? This place was unfindable! That’s the whole reason they came here!

No time to think of that. Whatever clade or kin this thing belonged to, it knew the deep woods, and it’d tracked them.

They had to run. They had to-

An icy breeze brushed against Dippers…

“Those little fuckin’-”

They’d gotten him again! Them and their stupid rules and their mind-numbing magical air, they’d gotten him again!

Now the twins had no supplies, no equipment, not even any god damn clothes!

Christ, why the hell had he thought coming here was a good idea?!

Dipper spotted one last, scrambling dragonfly-person and lurched his hand at it.

With luck, his fingers snapped around the carapace of the little, weasley bastard.

It struggled, eyes bulging in sheer terror; not for having been caught, but for what was coming.

“OUR STUFF! NOW!” Dipper barked. Miraculously, his voice didn’t crack, and came out quick and commanding.

Tears blooming in its eyes, it lurched a pointed finger towards one of the nearby walls.

Dipper had barely managed to turn, only to find Mabel already at that exact spot.

With a great kick, she snapped the roots of the wall in, dropped to her hands and knees, and began rummaging about the stolen goods.

Before she could finish, the dragonfly-boy slipped free, racing off towards a hiding place at the far end of The Hollow…

...only for a horribly, spindly, stilt-like leg to crash down through the roof, stomping the tiny figure into a spray of blue blood.

** _WHY COULDN’T HE MAKE OUT ANY OF THE DETAILS OF THAT FUCKING LEG?!?_ **

“ _ Mabellll~? _ ”

At his call, his sister burst from the hideaway, slinging a rucksack over her shoulder with one hand, the gleam of her grappling hook in the other.

The ceiling boomed and crashed and splintered behind them, more felt than heard, as Dipper lunged for his sister’s hand, catching it in his own.

They tore off down the narrowest tunnel they could find. To Dipper’s shame, he had no clue where they were headed, but he knew, if they ever hoped to see the sun again, they’d need space; distance, time to think, time to plan.

The tunnels were hilly and awful and random. Roots scratched at their skin as they barreled and scrambled, any way they could, like panicked rodents. Through crevices they could barely fit past, they tore and cracked and crashed, worming and squirming, and all the while...there was the thunder…

...the thunder of wood being torn to ribbons.

It was right at their heels.

The tunnel widened into a small, rounded room, and on the other side, near the roof, was their only exit; a tiny passage, barely large enough to fit one of them at a time.

Another, earsplitting roar, crushing their throats with nausea.

Mabel wrapped her arm around Dipper’s hip again, firing her grappling hook at the tiny passage.

Bullseye. The hook threaded the needle perfectly. Then came the rush.

...but this time...something slipped.

There were no more clothes to grip, and with the sheer force of the reeling grapple, Mabel’s hand slipped from her brother’s sweat-drenched skin.

Dipper was falling, but only for a moment. All he had time to hear was his sister’s horrified gasp before his face cracked against the far wall of the tunnel.

There was a flash of light in his eyes, his vision reeling, his mind floating, unmoored. Something wet was pouring from his nose.

“ ** _Dipper!_ ** ”

Unfocused eyes whirled up towards the sound, just in time to see Mabel scramble over the edge of the gap, reaching down for him.

He had to reach for that hand, but a chill shot up his spine. It was familiar.

_ Zombies.  _ _   
_ _ Soos is dead. _

_ ‘Christ, no! Not now! Why the hell now?!’ _

He scraped and scrambled up towards her. His breathing was growing shallow. Roots carved through his skin.

His hand caught Mabel’s and a rush of relief washed over him.

“Okay! I got you!” she heaved to lift her brother, “Climb up! Hurry!”

He felt the shock, first; the tremor in the air and earth.A retching crunch, and a deafening boom rang out. Not even a second later, dirt and wood shrapnel rained down on Dipper’s naked back.

It was here.

** _“DIPPER!”_ **

She called out again.

_We’re trapped.__  
__It’s all my fault.__  
_ _No one can save us._

His limbs went all but limp. His heart burned and clenched, lungs heaving, shallow and desperate, mind boiling.

_ ‘NoNoNoNoNoNoNo!’ _

** _I n O U t I n O U t I a m D p P R P i N E s I a m -_ **

  * **_I A M -_**

**Y**

**R**

**O**

**O**

**X**

**B**

**K**

**S**

**V**

**I**

He couldn’t breath. 

He was so close.   
_ ‘yOuWoRtHLEsSpUsSy’ _

** _“Dipper! Please!”_ ** she was crying.

_ He had to. _

** _He had to!_ **

Wild, uncontrolled, unfocused force. Mad strength with no direction or sense.

He looked up. He was almost there. He could almost touch her face.

He could see her beautiful smile, her tearful relief…

...relief…

...that fell into a look of pure, collapsing terror...

...he froze…

...as he felt long...cold talons slither around his bare, shaking frame…

...he was so close…

...and yet, he felt himself drawn back, away from his sister…

Instantly, Mabel was in hysterics,  ** _“NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”_ ** she caught his other wrist with her free hand and pulled back with everything she had.

Whatever branch she’d looped her legs around as an anchor snapped behind her with a loud crunch, and she winced in pain as she was effortlessly dragged from the hole.

**“MABEL!”** tears welled in his eyes,  **“MABEL, I’M SORRY!”**

When she came out over the edge, gravity and the odd angle defeated her grip, and she plunged, head-first to the ground. 

...At the sight of her  _ crumpling _ on impact, he let out the weakest, sickest yelp of pure dread.

...It was the last thing Dipper saw...

… before he was turned, in its palms…

...to face it…

** _...IT..._ **

** _...H E C O U L D S E E I T…_ **

Its head, elongated, hidden beneath a tattered old cowl.

Eyes blazing that same, awful color he couldn’t quite describe.

...and it’s  ** _FACE_ ** …

It  ** _ALMOST_ ** looked human.

He felt his stomach churn, and the only reason he didn’t vomit was because he was too terrified to move.

All that was left in his mind...was a certainty that this was how he’d die…

_ ‘...Mabel…’ _

* * *

...but...death never came…

...no...as time stood still, the... ** _thing_ ** simply stared at him with those haunting, ghostly eyes…

...then, he felt the pull in the edges of his mind.

Like a fish hook had caught the back of his brain and was now tugging it all inside-out and through his sinuses.

An awful buzz, like a million crawling insects washed over every inch of Dipper’s flesh.

His eyes began racing back and forth at a blinding speed

...and as his vision blurred, as an inhuman scream filled his ears, he began to see things.

A meteor.

An Altar.

A writhing, slimy shape.

Two, small figures holding hands.

A blue man; tall, wrinkled, skeletal, and naked, holding a long, ugly knife.

Flashing Blue and Red Lights.

An Altar.

A bottle, rushing towards him in a dark room.

A dozen hooded figures in black robes.

Blood dripping off a ledge.

Hands, dozens of them, holding him back, and a girl was screaming...

...he couldn’t make out the words, except for  _ “-I swear! I’ll-”... _

A boy on a street corner, disappearing into the distance.

A single, bloodshot eye, surrounded by fur.

Rushing air, like a storm.

An Altar

**A Glowing Alter.**

Weightlessness.

The wind knocked from him.

Then darkness…

...and silence…

...no...not silence…

...there was a small noise…

...a sort of...weak...grunting?

...His eyes drew, sluggish back into focus, as the ringing in his ears dulled…

** _Mabel!_ **

Mabel’s voice! That was Mabel’s voice!

* * *

He grit his teeth, screwing his eyes shut, focusing with everything he had, and when he opened them…

His stomach heaved all over again. The  _ Thing  _ was right above him…

...only it wasn’t holding him, anymore. It wasn’t even looking in his direction.

_ ‘Oh god, no!’ _

“Y-...You keep your-...your HANDS off  **MY BROTHER!** ” he wrenched to sit up, but his skull screamed at him and his muscles nearly ripped.

But he was finally able to get his bearings.

Blunt, hoof-like spikes stabbed the ground as it shifted around to face her.

She rushed around it, but it followed her. Without missing a beat, she darted the other way, but it rushed in her path again. It reached for her, but she lunged forward, charging, diving, sliding and rolling between its four, massive legs.

One hoof raised and struck down into her path, inches short of crushing her. She scrambled around it and back against the opposite wall.

Dipper clenched his eyes, his throat like gravel. 

He gritted his teeth until they throbbed, straining for any kind of focus.

Mabel was in danger.

** _THINK, Damnit!_ **

His eyes shot open as the thunderous footsteps of the entity battered the floor with a shuddering rhythm, pivoting after his twin.

His gaze darted about, and caught a rumpled shape along the far edge of the room.

The backpack!

He scrambled for it, strained limbs buckling and screaming.

Mabel shrieked behind him.

His heart stopped, but he heard scrambling, and more cascading hoofbeats.

It hadn’t caught her yet.

He reached the pack.

Trembling fingers fumbled at the zipper of the smaller, outside pouch.

He heaved it open and jammed his hand inside. 

_ ‘PleasePleasePleasePlease-’ _

His fingers closed on a cold, plastic shaft, and his heart nearly exploded from within his chest.

He wrenched out-

-their spare crystal flashlight.

He rolled from his stomach onto his back.

Just in time to see her, his sister, back pressed against the wall.

She’s heaving, exhausted. 

The shrouded nightmare is bearing down on her.

He sternly shouts,  **“MABEL!”**

She looks over just as he points the flashlight directly at her.

The beast lunges.

She lunges out of the way, scrambling past its leg and diving into the open.

He snaps on the flashlight.

A warping sound, like the call of heaven, echoes across the walls.

The blast was like the fist of god.

Earth tears, walls crack…

...and, in an instant...Mabel Pines, bare as an angel, has swollen to a  ** _titanic_ ** scale; so large, the roots of the ground and walls and ceiling give way and collapse, nearly tripling the chamber’s size in a thunderous gout of dust and earth…

...and yet, as the cloud clears, she’s still doubled-over where she sits, back bent awkward, head crammed against the roof.

Dipper gazed up in awe at his sister as she loomed overhead. A less-than-savory thought crossed his mind, but he shook it loose, next checking on the creature.

Just as he thought; 

Massive as it was, their pursuer was now dwarfed, barely a shih-tzu compared to the goliath of a woman that now hunched over it. 

Even moreso, the explosion had showered it in debis, and with horrific howls and squeals, it now fought to free its limbs from the rubble that half-swallowed it.

And Dipper smiled.

_ Proof of concept. _

** _“Mabel!”_ ** He shouted out to his twin, who winced as she stroked the new bruise at the back of her head.

She turned to her brother with bleary eyes.

**“Drop the roof on’em!”**

The girl’s eyes sprung wide as her teeth smashed together in a vengeful, furiously-evil grin.

Turning back to the former-nightmare in her lap, she slammed her fingers through the cracked earth of the ceiling…

...and roared out the most perfectly inappropriate, Mabel-War-Cry she could muster.

** _“EAT THIS, SUCKAAAAA!”_ **

There wasn’t a crash, really. Not one Dipper heard, anyway. His ears erupting in a ringing din, he more felt the heaving, cacophonous cloudburst burst, as several tons of earth and stone exploded down on the center of the cavern all at once.

Everything was a gritty storm, throwing Dipper back against the wall he was mere feet from, biting at his skin. He shielded his face as rock-fragments thundered against his muscles and bone.

By the time the storm settled, Dipper was half-buried, coughing and retching up chunks of soot and turf.

But he barely had a moment to rest, as a tremendous pair of hands frantically carved away the soil around him and yanked him free of his tomb.

It was only now that he noticed the moonlight, newly streaming in from above.

And as he did, he was lifted aloft into the warm, August skies...clutched gingerly in the behemoth palm of his sister.

For a moment, vertigo took him, staring at the ground, maybe twenty-three yards below.

For a moment, he could almost see the form of their pursuer, squirming beneath the rocky mound of the collapsed cavern...

Yet, as his hearing returned, all that vanished into lurching whiplash and screams, as Mabel reeled back and STOMPED on the pit over and over and over and over. Tears like a rainstorm erupted from her leviathan eyes.

** _“DON’T! YOU! EVER! FUCKING! TOUCH! MY! BROTHER! EVER! EVER! EVER! EVER! AGAIN! YOU! FUCKING! SHIT! FUCK!! FUCK!!! FUUUUUCK!!!!”_ **

_ ‘Holy Moses! Mabel’s pissed!’ _

**“Shut!”** hurk! ** “Up!”** Hurk! ** “Ty-”** HURK!  **“-rone!”**

The force of being heaved back and forth in his sister’s giant hand stirred his already rattled stomach too hard, and…

...well...if Mabel was at all aware of the situation...she’d probably have quoted “Shronk” and said “better out than in”, or something silly like that.

Though, if she had any sense at all, she’d probably be proud of her brother for spewing his guts all over the very attacker she was assaulting...whether he meant to or not.

And, just as quickly as the spectacle had escalated, Mabel had turned and taken off into the woods, smashing trees aside, shielding Dipper with her hand as the nightmare vanished into the background.

Yet...in his final glimpse of the pit...Dipper could have sworn he saw the stones that buried their pursuer...stir again...

* * *

It was surprising how much more ground they could cover when Mabel was over fifty feet tall. They were barely power walking, and they’d already made the base of the cliff they’d been heading for.

In any other circumstance, Dipper might have been satisfied, even impressed…

...but...with the look on Mabel’s face...well...

Mabel practically slammed, shoulder-first, into the rock face, and slid, agonizingly down the rough surface, her eyes filled with barely-restrained tears.

Her grip on her brother loosened, and Dipper, throat still burning, mind still swimming, weakly crawled loose onto the apex of her knee.

Before him, his sister hung her head, wearily, her eyes hidden behind a curtain of hair.

Dipper hesitated for a moment, “h-...m-Mabes?”

The giant woman whimpered, shaking her head weakly as she pulled her knees in closer, tucking a single lock of hair into her mouth and then pulling on two others, anxiously, with both hands, struggling to wrap the far-too-short-clumps of hair around her figure.

His face turned serious. He knew this behavior.

He turned, and without a second thought, slid down her shin…

...he picked up way more speed than he thought he would before hitting the ground…

...yet, even as the stinging shocks ripped up his shins, he wasn’t deterred.

On shaky legs, he stumbled out a ways from his sobbing sister.

Turned the flashlight towards her…

...and in an echoing, warp of sound and light...she was shrunk back to the height he knew; the one that nearly matched his own.

...and there she was; huddled, naked as the day she was born in a tiny alcove under the cliff.

He thanked his common sense for grabbing the backpack just before the explosion...and holding it through Mabel’s onslaught.

Still shuddering, still unsteady in both mind and body, Dipper weakly opened the second pouch on the backpack...reached in...and pulled free a single, thick, knitted top.

He stood to rush over to his sister, only for his legs to give out, throwing him to the ground.

_ ‘Well, I guess that’s what we get when we neglect the gym.’ _

He staggered back to his feet and, with greater patience, stumbled up to his precious; his favorite person in the world…

...and draped the sweater, completely, over her shuddering form…

...before taking her into his warm embrace…

...the sky was just starting to warm with the unseen light of the sun...when Mabel stirred from within sweater-town, after years of not needing it…

_ “I’m sorry…” _

“It’s okay Mabes…” Dipper nuzzled into the top of her head, which poked out from within the knitted cocoon.

Her sobs echoed out, muffled, “You should-...You sh-...y-You should b-be in the hospital. You’re...Dip, you…”

Dipper squeezed her closer.

“...you shouldn’t even be out hereTHIS stupid...stupid...dumb, stupid…” she gasped, “It’s just a stupid freakin’  ** _bird!_ ** ”

Dipper stroked her back tenderly, planting kisses on her head as he whispered.

“HeyHey, no. I wanted to do this. I wanted to make this right.”

Mabel shook her head, “No! It’s just a bird! We came all this way, and it’s...and I nearly-” she sniffed, “I almost lost…”

“Mabes-”

Her eyes poked up over the neck of the sweater.

“I ALMOST LOST YOU, DIP! “ and with that, she finally broke, sobbing wildly and openly. 

Dipper merely held her tighter, pulling her bunched form into his chest. He gave her a long, intense moment, as she blubbered and mumbled and rambled.

“Y’almos’...y’fell, an-an-... _ ohgod, your nose! _ ” her arms lept from the sweater, frantically whipping the blood from his upper lip. Her voice was barely audible amid her hyperventilating. _ “OhMybrobro...ohgodmybrobro! Ohmygodwhatdid-”  _

He smiled weakly, gingerly taking her hand in his and guiding it up to the bridge of his own.

The bleeding was close to stopping, sure, but he let her pinch the pressure point, regardless.

Her other limb snaked up and pressed back into the base of Dipper’s septim, as well, desperate to fix what she felt she’d broken.

And, all the while, Dipper gently hushed her, guiding her through her own kind of panic attack, just as she had through his so many times before.

After some time...after the bleeding had stopped, completely...Mabel’s hands drifted from her brother’s face, drifting down to cradle his jaw and the side of his head, pulling it into hers as she rocked back and forth.

“I did this…” Mabel whimpered.

“We both wanted this.”

“No...no you should...you should be in the hospital.”

“I wanted to leave.”

“God, you almost...you almost…”

“Almost what?”

Mabel gasped, sucking in breath through her shuddering.

“Almost...died…” 

Dipper shook his head.

“You were right there to save me, Mabes. You always are.”

She shook her head, “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“I’ve wanted to come back to these woods for so long…”

With those words, he nuzzled hard into her hair, loving, longing, treasuring her.

“...Remember when we’d go on hikes here in high school?”

A whimper from Mabel became a gasping chuckle. “We were clueless…”

“We were…” Dipper smiled, “...but we got stronger.” his sister turned to him, leaning up against him, her eyes glistening.

“We were always hurt. We were always scared. Ever since that first summer…” she was practically mesmerized by words she already knew, but had long forgotten.

“We were afraid...just like now...but we faced it together...just like we said we would…”

He smiled, tears in his eyes. “Mabel...I’m sorry I gave this up. I’m sorry I gave you up. This has always been who we are.”

Mabel shook her head, a smile on her face, eyes wet and well beyond breaking.

...but, he held her head still, and planted one, long, gentle kiss on her lips.

“...I love you, Mabel Pines…”

Whimpering in doubt and shame and disbelief, she threw her head over her brother’s shoulders, weaving her fingers into his hair and shuddering wildly.

_ “I got you hurt…” _

He smiled. “I still love you.”

She gasped and wheezed,  _ “I w-was selfish?” _

“No, you weren’t.”

_ “I ALWAYS WAS!” _

Dipper snickered softly, “And I love you anyway.”

She groaned, mashing herself into her brother’s shoulder in guilt and shame and embarrassment.  _ “I...got you together with Miranda…” _

Dipper chucked openly this time, “I should have known better.”

** _“I _ ** _ SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER! _ ** _”_ **

“Well…” Dipper paused, “I guess we were both dumb, then.”

Mabel continued to mumble, 

_ “I sent you into that pit.” _

“I wanted to prove I wasn't a wuss.”

_ “I let that mind worm infect you.” _

“You’re the only reason it never got to my brain.”

_ “I caused that war between the Manataurs and the Hulders.” _

Dipper straight-up giggled, “And then you made peace with candy-bacon and dating tips before anyone even got hurt!!”

_ “I SOLD YOUR SOUL!” _

...this caused Dipper to freeze. He’d heard that from her before...

...and so Mabel went on,  _ “I sold your soul. I let Bill possess you, and I doomed the world, and I sold you out to Stan, and I called you short, and I-” _

“Mabel!”

** _“I-”_ **

**“MABEL!”**

Dipper seized Mabel by both arms, squeezing her, glaring into her eyes with a singular ferocity; a pure, overwhelming hatred, not of her, but of what she’s done to herself over the years...of the all-consuming guilt she’s felt for things long-gone.

He stared her down...but...there was a fear in her eyes that stopped him dead...and turned every scrap of his frustration to regret.

He loosened his grip.

“Oh...shit, Mabes, I’m...I’m so sorry.”

_ “No.” _ Her words came swift. Swift enough to strike like a rushing knife,  _ “No, I...I deserve it…” _

Dipper heart froze and cracked.

_ “I hurt you...I did...It’s my fault you hurt like this…” _

...and that cut deep; deeper than he ever could have imagined.

As he sat there, stunned, Mabel’s breath began to hitch and shorten, tears welling all over, as her fingers tensed, digging into her ankles hard enough to draw blood. She whimpered and gasped, but just kept squeezing...and it tore Dipper’s heart in two.

He wanted to lunge out, to stop her, to demand she stop, just as he did before. He wanted to just end this, to fix this, to fix her, to fix both of them…

...but instead, he took a deep breath, and thought back. Thought of Mabel. Thought of them, together…

...and then…

...he reached out with both hands…

...and, with gentle insistence, slipped his fingers beneath her palms...and waited…

...waited until her grip loosened...and he was finally able to lift her hands into his soothing grasp.

And even as she refused to meet his eye, staring into her sweater with choking guilt, he spoke to her nonetheless…

“Maybe…” he admitted in a hushed tone, “Maybe you did hurt me…”

Mabel clearly bit part of her cheat hard at the sentiment, wincing hard.

“...but, you know what else you did?”

...That, oddly, made the young woman go still. For a moment...and finally, it was Dipper’s turn to carry on.

“You taught me how to live with what hurt…”

Mabel flinched, gasping and softening ever so slightly, but remaining balled up, like a tortured animal awaiting an expected beating.

Dipper smiled, gentle and wistful. “Do you remember what you’d say?”

Agonizing moments passed like this, their hands woven together…

...before finally…

...Mabel spoke…

“W-...” Mabel hiccupped and gulped back, “What’s...you’re name?”

Dipper shut his eyes, sighing in relief as he answered calmly.

“Mason, Phillip, Pines...People call me Dipper.”

Mabel’s breath hitched. “Dipper Pines.”

“Dipper Pines.” her brother responded in turn.

“H-...how old are you?”

Dipper’s adoring smile widened. “I’m twenty-one years old. I turn twenty-two, today, at six-fifteen in the afternoon.”

A weak smile of adoration struggled and failed to take upon her face.

“Where were you born?”

Dipper smiled, half-tender, half playfully-smug.

“Alta Bates Medical Center, Oakland, California.” Mabel couldn’t help but smile, herself, letting out a weak sniff of a laugh.

“Where did you  ** _grow up_ ** _ ? _ ” she murmured with...almost instantly, as if a trace of her was returning.

“42 Graic Avenue, Piedmont.” 

Mabel let out a giggle; tiny, teary-eyed, but a genuine giggle...but then, she took a deep breath. Clutching her brother’s hands tighter, she stared him down with tearful, uncertain eyes.

“Where’s Bill?”

Dipper’s breath hitched for just a flash, but only a flash.

When he next spoke, he did so confidently. “He’s gone. Dead and gone.”

“You’re safe.”

“ _ We’re _ safe.” Dipper added with a smile.

“ ** _YOU’RE_ ** safe.” Mabel looked almost frantic. Dipper froze for a moment, not expecting that.

“...Okay… _ I’m _ safe…”

“You’re safe.” Mabel’s voice hitched as her eyes threatened to overflow.

“I’m safe.”

“You’re…” She clenched her eyes and sucked air through her teeth, “Dipper’s…”

With all of his strength, Dipper took Mabel in his arms and held her, securely, to the soft strength of his chest.

She sobbed, long and deep, as she lay against him.

And he supported her; with everything he had left, he supported her.

“I’m here, Mabel…I have you...”


End file.
